The Japan Times - DR Congo PM says 'more than 7,000 dead' in war-torn east

A weeks long advance in a region rich in cultural resources but blighted by various conflicts over the past 30 years, has seen the M23 and its Rwandan allies gain a significant foothold.

M23 fighters took control of South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu just over a week ago, after capturing Goma, the capital of North Kivu and main city in the country's east, late last month.

"The security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels," Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, saying that since January, "the deaths of more than 7,000 compatriots" had been registered.

She said the number includes "more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified", adding that another 1,500 bodies were still in the morgue.

AFP has not been able to verify these figures.

Asked at a press briefing on the sidelines of the council whether the dead were civilians or soldiers, she said that "for the moment... we have not yet been able to identify all of these people".

But she said that "there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead".

- 'Insecurity in the province'-

The UN reported at the beginning of February more than 3,000 deaths since January 26 in east DRC around the time of the M23 offensive which saw the group capture Goma.

The UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said Monday that as of February 14 there had been 842 deaths in hospitals in Goma and the outskirts of the city.

In Goma and Bukavu, which the M23 captured on February 16, the Red Cross has also buried many bodies -- often unidentified and collected in the streets.

The day after Bukavu was taken life in the city "returned to normal, but local sources reported an increase in crime", particularly burglaries by armed men, OCHA said Monday.

"This increase in crime is due to the circulation of weapons abandoned by the soldiers" of the DRC army, OCHA said, adding that this "raises the risk of an increase of insecurity in the province".

Schools were reopening on Monday in Bukavu, although few pupils showed up, an AFP journalist saw.

Several heads of public and private schools also told AFP they were far from full.

"Lots of parents did not send their children, some classrooms are empty" and others are not very full, said Adolphe Mujunju, the head of one private school complex.

Anuarite Feza said she had not sent her two children to school on Monday because the security situation is "not reassuring at all".

The mother aged in her 30s said she was waiting to see what happens and might send them "tomorrow or the day after".

In Goma and its outskirts, the "security situation... also remains worrying", with a resurgence of criminal acts including home robberies, thefts and assaults which fuel a "climate of fear", OCHA said.

The agency said that the six main hospitals in Goma "are still overwhelmed by the new influx of wounded" and that medical facilities in and around the city "now fear an imminent shortage of medicines".

The hostilities have also "exacerbated food insecurity" in and around Goma.

The M23 appears in recent days to have paused its offensive as it approaches Uvira, a town located northwest of Lake Tanganyika and facing Bujumbura, the economic capital of Burundi.

Burundi's president flew to DRC for talks with his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi over the conflict, multiple sources told AFP on Monday.

M23 forces have been advancing towards the Burundi border, where thousands of refugees have already crossed.

Burundi's President Evariste Ndayishimiye landed in the DRC capital Kinshasa on Sunday, where he held an hour-long meeting with Tshisekedi before returning to Bujumbura.

A senior Burundian official said the two men -- meeting for the first time since the conflict's latest escalation -- discussed the "worrying situation in eastern Congo".

An army officer also said Ndayishimiye and Tshisekedi wanted to "iron out differences" between the two.

Burundian officers, speaking on condition of anonymity to AFP last week, blamed re-supply issues on the Congolese forces.

Since October 2023, Burundi has deployed more than 10,000 troops to support the Congolese army under a military cooperation agreement with Kinshasa.

But sources told AFP last week that the soldiers were pulling back, despite official denials.

K.Nakajima--JT