A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.
The soldiers were sentenced on Tuesday in the town of Lubero in Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern North Kivu province, where Congolese forces have been fighting the Rwanda-backed M23 insurgency for nearly three years, as well as facing other militia violence.
Fighting has flared in Lubero territory and cases of soldiers abandoning their positions have helped the enemy advance, said local army spokesperson Mak Hazukay.
“Some of the soldiers who are supposed to be fighting the enemy at the front have shown a kind of indiscipline,” he said. “We had to organise this educational trial to set things right.”
Overall 24 soldiers stood trial. In addition to those handed death penalties, four received 2-10 year sentences, six were acquitted, and one’s case was deferred for further
investigation.
The hearings were intended “to help restore trust between the military and the population,” Congo’s military prosecutor Kabala Kabundi told Reuters.
All those convicted pleaded not guilty and have five days to appeal their sentence, Kabundi said. A lawyer for one of the defendants said they would appeal.
According to Human Rights Watch, “the Rwandan army and the M23 armed group have throughout 2024 indiscriminately shelled displacement camps and other densely populated areas near Goma in eastern Congo. The Congolese armed forces and allied militias have increased the risk faced by displaced people in the camps by deploying artillery nearby and by entering the camps, where they have committed abuses against residents.
“Congolese soldiers and a coalition of abusive militia known as “Wazalendo” (“patriots” in Swahili) have opened fire inside displacement camps, killing and wounding civilians,” said the HRW report report released in September 2024.
“They have also raped women, including women in the camps and others searching for food and firewood nearby. In the Kanyaruchinya camp, they detained people in a pit in the ground to extort them. M23 fighters raped women who crossed the front line in search of food.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
