Some 7,000 people have died since January in fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the prime minister of the country told a high-level meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, with combatants and civilians among the dead.<\/p>\n
About 3,000 deaths were reported in Goma, Judith Suminwa said, and about 450,0000 people were left without shelter after 90 displacement camps were destroyed.<\/p>\n
Since January, the M23 rebel group, which Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of backing, has captured swathes of eastern Congo including the cities of Goma and Bukavu, and valuable mineral deposits.<\/p>\n
The latest fighting, and M23’s advance, are part of a major escalation in eastern Congo of a\u00a0conflict over power, identity and resources dating back to the\u00a0Rwandan genocide\u00a0in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Rwanda rejects allegations from Congo, the United Nations and Western powers that it supports M23 rebels with arms and troops.<\/p>\n
Suminwa urged the world to act and to impose\u00a0“dissuasive sanctions”\u00a0on Rwanda amid mass displacements and summary executions.<\/p>\n
“It is impossible to describe the screams and cries of millions of victims of this conflict,” she said.<\/p>\n
UN chief Antonio Guterres, at the Geneva meeting, said human rights around the world were being “suffocated” and made reference to horrifying abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
“If this question of the violation of territorial integrity isn’t resolved, the situation could degenerate,” Suminwa told Reuters in a press briefing after her address to the Council.<\/p>\n
About\u00a040,000 people have fled\u00a0to Burundi, one of the nine countries that borders the DRC, in two weeks to escape the fighting, the U.N. said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Suminwa warned that the worsening security situation with M23 and other armed groups could spill over to neighbouring countries, posing a danger to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some 7,000 people have died since January in fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the prime minister of the country told a high-level meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, with combatants and civilians among the dead. About 3,000 deaths were reported in Goma, Judith Suminwa said, and about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2362,1129],"tags":[1769,72,1468,3816,140],"class_list":["post-15392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-bukavu","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-goma","tag-m23-rebel","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}