M23 REBELS killed at least 140 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last month in one of the worst atrocities by the armed group since its resurgence in late 2021, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.
This is despite a peace process, brokered by the US and Qatar, to end the conflict in the region.
Witnesses told the advocacy group that the Rwanda-backed rebels “summarily executed” local residents, including women and children, largely from the Hutu ethnic group in the Rutshuru area, near the Virunga National Park.
The rebels have previously strongly denied any role in these killings, calling the charges a “blatant misrepresentation of the facts”.
It did not respond to a request to comment on the report, the rights group said.
The alleged massacre appears to have taken place during an M23 campaign against an armed Hutu group, the FDLR, formed by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.
HRW said the total killings in July may exceed 300, corroborating similar findings by the UN earlier this month.
Fighting between government troops and the M23 escalated in January, when the rebels captured large parts of the mineral-rich east, including the regional capital Goma.
Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes in the ongoing conflict, the UN says.
In the report, released on Wednesday, HRW said the M23 used machetes and gunfire to attack people in at least 14 villages and farming areas near the Virunga National Park between 10 and 30 July.
The M23 fighters surrounded and blocked off all roads into the area to prevent people from leaving, witnesses said.
“We woke up on 11 July and [the M23] were there in large numbers.… [T]hey were already on our doorstep.… [T]hey killed people with guns and machetes,” a man said, adding that five members of his family were killed in Katanga area.
A woman who saw M23 fighters kill her husband with a machete on 11 July said that M23 fighters that day rounded up about 70 women and children.
“They told us to sit on the edge of the riverbank, and then they started shooting at us,” the woman was quoted as saying, adding that she survived after falling into the river without being shot.
Another man said that he watched as the rebels killed his wife and four children aged nine months to 10 years from afar, according to the report.
Locals said that M23 fighters told them to immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organising funerals.
“M23 fighters also threw bodies, including of women and children, into the Rutshuru River,” the report added.
Citing 25 witness accounts plus medical workers, military and UN personnel, the report said that members of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), were backing the M23 operation.