At least 18 people have lost their lives and an as yet unspecified number have been injured this Friday in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo after a drone bombing, attributed to the militias of the March 23 Movement (M23), against the town of Mulima, in the province of South Kivu.
The administrator of the territory of Fizi, Samy Badibanga, has denounced that the attack has practically razed the town. "There are numerous victims among women, men and children, in addition to losses of livestock. Health and school infrastructure has been destroyed, and several students have seen their schools razed in the villages of Mulima, Kangouli and their surroundings," he declared to the United Nations radio station in the country, Radio Okapi.
The 18 fatalities are internally displaced persons who had previously fled clashes between the M23 and the Congolese Army along with their allies, the Wazalendo militias. These episodes of violence have triggered, as is usual in the conflict in the DRC, new massive displacements of civilians towards the centers of Baraka, Kananda, Mukera, Kichoula and Lumania, where they lack the necessary protection.
Since Thursday, Fizi has become the scene of intense clashes between the Congolese Armed Forces and the M23 in South Kivu, which once again highlights the lack of results from the various international peace processes, including the one sponsored by the United States, unable to stop years of fighting that have caused an incalculable number of deaths and displaced persons.
So far, neither the M23 nor its political wing, the Congo River Alliance, have issued any statement about this bombing. Instead, their latest interventions on social media have focused on accusing the Congolese Army and its allies of continuing an "extermination" campaign against the Banyamulenge, the Congolese Tutsi community whose rights the March 23 Movement claims to defend.