Repatriation of former Rwandan Hutu fighters from DR Congo picks up, UN reports

The United Nations has repatriated 335 former Rwandan Hutu fighters and their dependents from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the past month alone as part of an effort to end a source of conflict since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

“As of today, another 219 Rwandan nationals are awaiting repatriation at UN-run facilities in north-eastern Congo,” the UN peacekeeping force in DRC (MONUC) said.

Last month, in a move supported by MONUC, the DRC and Rwanda launched a joint military offensive against the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), which consists of Rwandan Hutus who fled after the Hutu extremist genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus and have since contributed to the turmoil in strife-torn eastern DRC.

MONUC said the number of former Rwandan Hutu fighters willing to go back home continues to increase daily, adding that its doors remain open to those willing to join its voluntary disarmament, demobilization, repatriation, reintegration and rehabilitation (DDRRR) programme.

Most recently, the FDLR has been involved in the flare-up of clashes since late August mostly in North Kivu province, where the Congolese national army, the mainly Tutsi militia known as the CNDP and other rebel groups such as the Mai Mai have fought in shifting alliances, uprooting some 250,000 civilians on top of the 800,000 already displaced by violence in recent years.

MONUC today welcomed the increasing number of children leaving the ranks of Mai Mai fighters since the start of the accelerated integration of armed groups into the national army. During the past week, the Mission’s child protection section separated 195 children from these groups in North Kivu.