INDICTMENT IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE MASSACRES AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMES COMMITTED IN NOVEMBER 1996 ON THE TERRITORY OF THE DRC.
NOVEMBER 1996: THE MONTH OF MASSACRES, REFUGEES BURNED ALIVE, MASS GRAVES AND HUMANITARIAN TRAGEDIES.
Accusatory Plea by
Fernandez MURHOLA,
International Human Rights Law Advocate | DRC National Human Rights Commissioner (2015–2022) | Expert in Conflict Resolution | Expert in National Resilience | Victim, Witness and Survivor of Rwanda's crimes in the DRC.
Kinshasa, 04 November 2026
PREAMBLE — THIRTY YEARS OF MEMORY, THIRTY YEARS OF DENIAL OF JUSTICE!
November 1996 was not a mere episode of war in the history of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was a month of terror, collective massacres, summary executions, refugees burned alive, hunted populations, mass graves and massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
Thirty years later, the victims are still waiting for the truth. The survivors are demanding justice. The families of the disappeared are waiting for their dead to cease being sacrificed on the altar of geopolitical interests.
The United Nations Mapping Report, published in August 2010, listed 617 alleged incidents of serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.
This historic document, prepared under the authority of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, stands as a major documentary pillar in the fight against impunity.
We refuse to let it become a mere archival document, locked away in diplomatic libraries while victims continue to die without recognition, without justice and without reparation.
We refuse to let thirty years of Congolese suffering be reduced to a succession of humanitarian crises, diplomatic negotiations and geopolitical arrangements.
Congo is not a land without memory. Its dead are not statistics. Its victims are not negotiable!
I. SOUTH KIVU: THE MASSACRES OF REFUGEES, COLLECTIVE EXECUTIONS AND THE CRIMES OF NOVEMBER 1996
The Mapping Report documents the following alleged incidents in the province of South Kivu.
1. 1–2 November 1996 — Ndunda, Uvira territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR/FAB indiscriminately killed around 250 civilians, including more than 200 refugees and some thirty Zaireans. Several refugees drowned in the Ruzizi River while trying to flee. Zairean civilians were also killed because they were accused of supporting the CNDD-FDD.
2. 2 November 1996 — Kashusha/INERA, Kabare territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR attacked the camp with heavy weapons and killed hundreds of refugees. The fire struck indiscriminately refugees, FAZ soldiers from the contingent in charge of camp security, and ex-FAR/Interahamwe.
3. 3 November 1996 — COTONCO, near Bwegera.
Seventy-two Rwandan refugees were burned alive in a house where they had been gathered under the pretext of preparing their repatriation to Rwanda. The victims had been captured in neighbouring villages.
4. 13 November 1996 — Ngendo, Uvira territory.
Around one hundred Burundian refugees were killed by elements of the AFDL/APR/FAB, in the context of the hunt for refugees trying to reach Burundi.
5. Around 22 November 1996 — Chimanga, west of Bukavu.
Several hundred refugees were gathered under the pretext of a meeting and a meat distribution. After their registration and grouping according to their prefecture of origin, APR/FPR soldiers opened fire. Sources cited by the Mapping Report speak of between 500 and 800 victims.
6. 21 November 1996 — Shanje, Kalehe territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR massacred several hundred refugees in the makeshift camp of Shanje. Survivors tried to flee through the Rukiga bamboo forest. Women, children, elderly people and vulnerable persons were among the victims.
7. 22 November 1996 — Lumbishi, Kalehe territory.
Refugees who survived the Shanje massacre were in turn killed by elements of the AFDL/APR. The exact number of victims remains undetermined.
8. Around 2 and 4 November 1996 — Kahuzi-Biega National Park.
Elements of the AFDL/APR killed an undetermined number of refugees trying to flee the massacres and reach North Kivu through the national park.
9. Around mid-November 1996 — Nyabibwe, Kalehe territory.
Elements of ex-FAR/Interahamwe killed an undetermined number of refugees, mainly the sick, the elderly and persons with disabilities who could no longer flee. Rockets were fired at houses and containers where some people were locked in. Other victims died burned alive in vehicles set on fire.
10. 24 November 1996 — Mwaba, Uvira territory.
Twenty-four Burundian Hutu refugees, from the Biriba camp, were burned alive by elements of the AFDL/APR/FAB. After arresting and interrogating the people present in the village, the soldiers released the Zairean civilians and locked the Burundian refugees in a house which they set on fire.
This crime stands as one of the most atrocious illustrations of the selection of victims on the basis of their nationality and their refugee status.
II. NORTH KIVU : THE HUNT FOR REFUGEES, EXECUTIONS AND MASS GRAVES.
North Kivu was also the scene of a succession of massacres and grave violations.
11. 2–30 November 1996 — Kibumba, Nyiragongo territory.
The Biodiversity Emergency Team reports that the population of Kibumba buried 2,087 bodies during this period. This figure is a count of buried bodies, not an individual attribution of each death to a specific perpetrator. It nonetheless bears witness to the scale of the human catastrophe following the attacks on the camps and forced displacements.
12. 6 November 1996 — Grand Seminary of Buhimba, outskirts of Goma.
Three Tutsi religious, two priests and a sister, were killed by elements of ex-FAR/Interahamwe and presumed Zairean armed bandits. They had survived the attack on the seminary building and had remained hidden for three days before being arrested while looking for water and food.
On 3 November, elements of ex-FAR/Interahamwe had also looted vehicles and property of the Grand Seminary.
13. 6–7 November 1996 — Tebero and Njango, Masisi territory.
Armed Hutu elements attacked trucks carrying several hundred civilians, mainly of Nande origin. They opened fire, threw grenades and used rocket launchers. The next day, the survivors were massacred, the passengers stripped and the vehicles set on fire.
According to some sources, 760 bodies were reportedly buried in three mass graves. The Mapping Report specifies that it was not possible to establish whether the attackers were ex-FAR/Interahamwe or Hutu Banyarwanda militiamen.
14. Early November 1996 — Kabaraza, Rutshuru territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR killed several hundred Hutu Banyarwanda in a former camp of the Zairean Institute for Nature Conservation, at the entrance to Virunga National Park.
The victims had been intercepted at Ngwenda, sorted according to their ethnic origin, then taken to the site under the pretext of taking part in community work. Once there, they were killed with pestles. According to most sources cited, the number of victims approached 600.
15. 14 November 1996 — Mugunga Camp, Goma territory.
AFDL/APR soldiers fired indiscriminately with heavy weapons on the camp and its surroundings for six hours. An undetermined number of refugees were killed.
16. Around 14–15 November 1996 — Sake and Madimba coffee plantation, Masisi territory.
AFDL/APR soldiers fired heavy weapons and machine guns at refugees trying to flee towards Masisi. Hundreds of bodies were buried in a mass grave located in the Madimba coffee plantation, near Sake.
17. 15 November 1996 — Mugunga and surroundings.
Elements of the AFDL/APR deliberately killed refugees in Mugunga camp and its surroundings. A journalist who entered the camp on 16 November counted 40 victims killed by bullets or bladed weapons, including women, children and two infants.
On 19 November, volunteers of the Zairean Red Cross collected and buried 166 bodies found along the road between Sake and the outskirts of Mugunga camp.
18. 15–16 November 1996 — Mugunga and Lake Vert.
Elements of the AFDL/APR arrested an undetermined number of Rwandan Hutu men and executed them. Some were tied up and then thrown alive into Lake Vert, where they drowned. Others were executed with a bullet to the head and their bodies thrown into the lake.
19. November 1996 — Roadblocks between Nyiragongo volcano and Mugunga camp.
AFDL/APR soldiers killed an undetermined number of survivors from the Kahindo and Katale camps. Survivors report that refugees intercepted at the exit of Virunga National Park were sorted according to their age and sex and that adult men were systematically executed.
20. November–December 1996 — Makeshift camps in Virunga National Park.
Elements of the AFDL/APR killed an undetermined number of refugees who had resettled in makeshift camps inside the park. The killings continued for several weeks.
21. 18 November 1996 — Mugogo Market, Rutshuru territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR massacred several hundred Hutu Banyarwanda. The soldiers had announced a meeting to present a new local chief. After asking the non-Hutu population and that of Kiwanja to leave the area, they opened fire on the crowd. Some victims were finished off with hammer or pestle blows to the head.
In 2005, the population of Mugogo handed to the MONUC Human Rights Division a list recording 1,589 victims.
22. Around 18 November 1996 — Rukwi, Bashali chiefdom, Masisi territory.
AFDL/APR soldiers attacked a makeshift camp where many refugees had settled, mainly survivors of the Kahindo and Katale camps.
In the following weeks and months, the soldiers pursued and killed an undetermined number of survivors trying to flee the territory. This attack was part of a prolonged hunt for refugee populations.
23. 19 November 1996 — Ngungu, Masisi territory.
Mayi-Mayi fighters aligned with the AFDL stormed the village with the support of AFDL/APR artillery. They indiscriminately killed an undetermined number of refugees and ex-FAR/Interahamwe. Several sources estimate that the number of victims could reach several hundred.
24. Second half of November 1996 — Osso Farm, Masisi territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR killed dozens of refugees in a makeshift camp located near Osso Farm. The victims included a large number of women and children. Zairean civilians accused of having hidden or helped refugees were also killed. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen between 20 and 100 bodies on the site.
25. Late November 1996 — Miandja, Bashali chiefdom, Masisi territory.
Elements of the AFDL/APR killed some fifty civilians, including 40 Rwandan refugees and ten Hutu Banyarwanda.
III. GOMA AND THE ATROCITIES AGAINST OTHER CIVILIAN POPULATIONS.
The memory of November 1996 must neither be instrumentalised nor amputated. Victims of all communities must be recognised.
26. 3 November 1996 — Goma and surroundings.
Elements of ex-FAR/Interahamwe looted vehicles as well as property of the Grand Seminary of Buhimba. The Mapping Report also documents attacks and looting targeting humanitarian installations and international organisations, notably the ICRC, WFP and UNHCR, in the context of the capture of Goma.
27. 6–7 November 1996 — Tebero and Njango, Masisi.
The massacres of civilians transported by truck, already recalled in point 13 above, must be expressly recognised as serious crimes committed by Hutu armed elements whose exact identity could not be established. Historical truth demands that no alleged perpetrator be shielded from judicial examination.
These facts recall a fundamental requirement: no ethnic affiliation confers criminal immunity, and no community can be collectively criminalised.
IV. LEGAL QUALIFICATION: THESE CRIMES ARE NOT COLLATERAL DAMAGE!
The facts documented in November 1996 call for independent and thorough judicial investigations into the following qualifications:
A. War Crimes
1.Murder of civilians and persons hors de combat;
2.Indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations;
3.Attacks against protected persons, notably refugees and the wounded;
4.Cruel and inhuman treatment;
5.Pillage and unlawful destruction of property;
6.Outrages upon human dignity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.
B. Crimes Against Humanity
1.Murder;
2.Extermination;
3.Persecution on ethnic or other universally prohibited grounds;
4.Enforced disappearance, where its constituent elements are met;
5.Other inhumane acts;
6.Deportation or forcible transfer of population, where the legal conditions are established.
C. Crime of Genocide
The massacres, the selection of victims on the basis of their ethnic affiliation, collective executions and attacks against protected populations require a rigorous examination of the possible specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Genocide cannot be deduced automatically from the number of victims or the cruelty of the acts. It requires proof of the specific intent provided for by the 1948 Convention.
The Mapping Report, in paragraphs 500 to 522, precisely examines the constituent elements of the crime of genocide and the circumstances requiring thorough judicial investigations.
We demand that these facts be submitted to an independent, competent and impartial justice.
V. POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL ACCUSATION: THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FACE TO FACE WITH ITS RESPONSIBILITY.
1.How can we understand that the United Nations documented such atrocities, without an international judicial response commensurate with their gravity having been provided?
2.How can we understand that strategic, economic and security interests continue to weigh more heavily than the right to life of Congolese populations?
3.How can we explain that Rwanda can continue to benefit from diplomatic, economic and security partnerships without the historic crimes attributed to its forces and to the armed movements supported by them being subject to effective accountability?
4.How can we accept that Congolese victims are continually invited to dialogue, to reconcile and to make concessions, while responsibilities for the documented crimes remain insufficiently established and prosecuted?
We denounce this policy of double standards!
We denounce the diplomatic silence in the face of massacres!
We denounce the economic interests that take precedence over the protection of populations!
We denounce any instrumentalisation of peace to shield alleged perpetrators from justice!
Criminal responsibility is individual. But the political and moral responsibility of States that turn a blind eye, protect strategic interests or maintain relations without credible conditionality cannot be eternally evaded.
The international community cannot proclaim the universality of human rights and at the same time organise a selective geography of compassion and justice.
Impunity granted to the powerful constitutes a denial of the universality of international law.
VI. 1996–2026 : FROM THE FIRST WAR TO THE CONTINUITY OF VIOLENCE.
November 1996 is not an isolated page. It belongs to a broader history of wars, aggressions, massacres, forced displacements, resource predation and repeated violations of Congolese sovereignty.
The Mapping Report covers the period from March 1993 to June 2003. It therefore does not, on its own, document the events from 2004 to 2026. These last three decades require complementary work of documentation, establishment of responsibilities and preservation of evidence.
We demand that historic facts be confronted with contemporary violations, without confusion of periods, actors or responsibilities.
The different names of armed movements, their organisational transformations and chains of command must be the subject of a documented investigation. The responsibilities of States, political authorities, military commanders and external supporters must be examined on the basis of evidence.
The sovereignty of the DRC is not negotiable.
The life of Congolese people is not negotiable.
Justice for victims is not negotiable.
VII. OUR DEMANDS : TRUTH, JUSTICE, REPARATION AND GUARANTEES OF NON-REPETITION.
We solemnly demand :
_1._The opening of independent judicial investigations into the massacres documented by the Mapping Report;
_2._The identification and prosecution of material perpetrators, sponsors and hierarchical superiors, in compliance with fair trial guarantees;
_3._The preservation of mass graves, the location of execution sites and the forensic identification of victims;
_4._The recognition of victims and survivors, without ethnic, national or community discrimination;
_5._The establishment of effective mechanisms for individual and collective reparation;
_6._The creation of a credible international mechanism to follow up on responsibilities for crimes committed in the DRC since 1996;
_7._The strict conditionality of military, security, economic and financial partnerships with any State whose forces or proxies are involved in serious violations of international law;
_8._The protection of witnesses, human rights defenders and families of victims;
_9._The implementation of effective guarantees of non-repetition;
_10._The cooperation of the States concerned with the competent judicial mechanisms and international truth-seeking procedures.
CONCLUSION — WE REFUSE TO LET CONGO BE THE CEMETERY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONSCIENCE !
Thirty years!
Thirty years of tears, mourning, scattered families, destroyed villages, traumatised survivors and victims without a dignified burial.
Thirty years during which the Congolese people had to learn to survive in the midst of wars, while international powers pursued their diplomatic calculations.
We will not forget Ndunda, nor Kashusha, nor COTONCO, nor Ngendo, nor Chimanga, nor Shanje, nor Lumbishi, nor Kahuzi-Biega, nor Nyabibwe, nor Mwaba.
We will not forget Goma, nor Buhimba, nor Tebero, nor Njango, nor Kabaraza, nor Mugunga, nor Madimba, nor Lake Vert, nor Kibumba, nor Mugogo, nor Rukwi, nor Ngungu, nor Osso, nor Miandja.
We will not forget the women, the children, the infants, the elderly and the men executed because they were refugees or identified with a community.
We will not forget the Congolese who perished in this tragedy.
We will not forget either the victims of crimes committed by other armed groups. Justice is not ethnic vengeance. It is a universal demand for truth and accountability.
To Kigali, to Kinshasa, to New York, to Brussels, to Paris, to Washington, to Addis Ababa and to all capitals claiming to defend the international order, we issue a solemn warning:
SILENCE DOES NOT ERASE CRIMES.
TIME DOES NOT ABSOLVE THOSE RESPONSIBLE.
DIPLOMACY CANNOT REPLACE JUSTICE.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CONGO CANNOT BE SACRIFICED TO GEOPOLITICAL INTERESTS.
The Congolese People demand neither ethnic vengeance nor selective justice. They demand truth, criminal accountability, reparation and the end of impunity.
NO LASTING PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE!
NO RECONCILIATION WITHOUT TRUTH!
NO SOVEREIGNTY WITHOUT AN END TO AGGRESSION!
NO FUTURE FOR CONGO ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF IMPUNITY!
HONOUR TO OUR DEAD!
JUSTICE FOR OUR VICTIMS!
DIGNITY FOR SURVIVORS!
NEVER AGAIN IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO!
FOR ALL CONTACT :
Telephone: +243810017400 | Twitter: @fmurhola | E-mail: fmurhola@fmurhola.org | Website: https://www.fmurhola.org | P.O. Box: 133 Kinshasa 1 - Democratic Republic of Congo
Documentary note: the report is dated August 2010; its official release took place on 1 October 2010.