For several years, a wave of racist persecutions has affected a part of the Rwandophone minority in the Democratic Republic of Congo. African Facts has investigated several cases of lynching that were followed by acts of anthropophagy.
Adeba is a Congolese citizen who lived until recently in the Lac vert neighbourhood in Mugunga, on the outskirts of Goma — the provincial capital of North Kivu. “The period during which we experienced this escalation of violence was beyond imagination. Imagine a country where someone can be killed solely based on their appearance, because of the ethnicity they belong to. It’s as if this ethnic group doesn’t have the right to life. How can these militias claim to take up arms and kill other Congolese people, accusing them of being infiltrators ?”, he ask. He witnessed daily persecution against people identified as Tutsi, as well as several lynchings and acts of anthropophagy.
African Facts investigated several cases of anthropophagy that occurred between June 2022 and August 2024 in eastern DRC. We have documented four of them.
- On August 16, 2024, in Misisi, in the Fizi territory, South Kivu, Manirakiza Seruvumba was captured by Wazalendo militiamen from the CNPSC, then killed, burned, and eaten.
- On June 4, 2024, in Mugunga, North Kivu, the young Gatiyoni Munyabarenzi was captured and killed by Wazalendo militiamen from the FDLR and Nyatura before being burned, dismembered, and eaten.
- On May 30, 2024, in Mugunga, North Kivu, the young Emmanuel Karegeya was lynched to death, burned, and then eaten by Wazalendo militiamen from the FDLR and Nyatura.
- On June 18, 2022, the herder Fidèle Ntayoberwa was chased, lynched, burned, and eaten following a demonstration organised by the UDPS in Kalima, Maniema.
All of these crimes were targeted at people who were identified by their executioners as Tutsi. They all took place in public. None of the perpetrators have been punished.
The Kimachini barrier
Some residents of Mugunga, on the western outskirts of Goma, now haunted by memories of a place. Kimachini, the nickname of the crossroads located on the national road where the eponymous gravel crushing site is located. Between late 2022 and the fall of the city in January 2023, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Nyatura militia held a “barrier” a few kilometres upstream and occupied the area. The FDLR is an armed group formed in exile by individuals responsible for the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. Over the past three decades, they have also committed war crimes and crimes against humanity on the congolese side of the border. The Nyaturas gather Congolese Hutu fighters who have embraced the FDLR cause and served as their auxiliaries for fifteen years.
On Tuesday 4 June 2024, the young Gatiyoni Munyabarenzi was unfortunate enough to be passing by Kimachini. Adeba, who witnessed the scene, summarises: “He was caught, lynched and burned all night”. The following part of the story is chilling. “In the morning, the population came to celebrate. Two men, one of whom was dressed in red, took his charred flesh. While they were eating it, people gave them money and kargazok [a homemade fermented drink Ed.]. Each part of the body had its price. If people wanted themto eat the intestines, for instance, they would give them ten thousand francs; if they wanted a piece of flesh, five thousand francs. The body was then decapitated and dismembered, with the various parts being packed into bags. This situation only calmed down around 2:00 pm on Wednesday”, Adeba continues
Photos and videos reviewed by African Facts corroborate Adeba’s testimony. They show a dense crowd gathered around the calcined body of Gatiyoni. Many children stand in the front row, just a few centimetres away from the corpse. Some have their eyes wide open in astonishment, while others are smiling in amusement. Leaning over the body is a man wearing rust-coloured trousers, a motley shirt and a red cap. He is busy with a knife in his hand, eviscerating the corpse and cutting up its organs, which he is skewering on small wooden sticks. “I’m making skewers! Who will pay for the steak ?” he shouts.
“After these events, no Tutsi would dare pass in front of Kimachini again. If a Tutsi passed by, they were automatically considered a collaborator of the M23 and their fate was sealed. Worse than death itself. Anyone who tried to defend him risked retaliation”, says Adeba. He said he would have paid the price himself. “I tried to help some Tutsis escape. Subsequently, my house was raided and everything I owned was destroyed”, recounts the man, who then had to flee the city and go into exile.
The hunt for “infiltrators”
Since hostilities broke out between the Congolese government and the March 23 Movement (M23) in 2021, Kinshasa has been mobilising the population against an alleged internal enemy, blaming it for both its military defeats and its political failures. According to this rhetoric, Rwandophone congolese, and specifically those considered to be Tutsi, are labelled as “infiltrators” in their own country. Elements of a racist culture, born in neighbouring Rwanda where it caused a million deaths thirty years ago, have quickly become part of the discourse and permeated minds.. This is particularly the case in the eastern regions of the country, where these ideas have been taking root for decades in the wake of the FDLR. These idea are now relentlessly hammered into all Congolese people minds through the media and social networks.
From January 2023 onwards, the persecution of Tutsis in Goma has worsen further with the influx of refugees fleeing the fighting. When the M23 took the town of Kitchanga, 150 km north-east of Goma, its population, including Tutsis, fled, taking refuge with either the government or the rebels depending on the circumstances. Two camps for displaced people were set up near Mugunga. “I was greatly surprised to see how the Tutsis were mistreated and abused. Some were even arrested on suspicion of being infiltrators. They realised they weren’t welcome in any of the camps”, explains a neighbour, whose account aligns with those of refugees and other residents encountered by African Facts. With the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Tutsi were gathered and taken to an enclosure in the neighbouring Kyeshero district, east of Mugunga.
When the rebellion reached the immediate outskirts of the city a year later, the violence against Congolese Tutsis peaked. “It was the morning of 30 May in Mugunga. As usual, the FARDC had set up their heavy artillery inside and around the displaced persons camp. At around 4:00 am, the bombardment of Saké, Mushaki, Shasha and Karuba began. There was a rain of bombs. It was very noisy”, recalls a resident. “Having woken up so early and seeing the artillery firing all these bombs, my friend found the courage to film. A group of people came running and shouting: ‘This one must be a collaborator of the M23!’ How could he allow himself to film ?’ Everyone else there was filming. But they targeted him because he was Tutsi. It was very clear. I had just woken up and could hear them shouting: ‘We’ve captured a member of the M23! A collaborator!’”
Emmanuel Karegeya, the captive, was taken to Kimachini, where, according to testimonies collected by African Facts, his abductors beat him to death. Adeba was also present that day. “Then they brought tyres and burned him. They cut off a leg with a machete. Some of the people, including children and women, roamed around with the leg, shouting: ‘This is how we will treat these Tutsis ! They are collaborators of the M23 !’” he says.
The sequel foreshadows what will happen to the remains of Gatiyoni Munyabarenzi five days later at the same spot. “After a while, those who had stayed with the body took a knife and started cutting off pieces of flesh”, Adeba explains. “A father I know asked ‘How much will you give me to eat his heart ?’ A mother gave him twenty thousand francs. The man grabbed the knife, tore out the heart, grilled it and ate it. The victim’s body was decapitated and cut into pieces, with people leaving with parts of his body in bags”.
According to all the witnesses interviewed by African Facts, this atmosphere of terror persisted in Mugunga for eight months. It was not until 24 January 2025 that the M23 rebels reached Goma, putting an end to it after a battle that caused numerous civilian deaths.
At least four documented manifestations of the phenomenon in three years
These two acts of anthropophagy in Mugunga in the spring of 2024 are not the only ones to have been committed in eastern DRC since the resumption of the conflict at the end of 2021. Unfortunately they were not the last either.
Two years prior to the Goma incidents, on 18 June 2022, a demonstration organised by the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS, the presidential party) in Kalima, Maniema province, descended into a pogrom. A group of Banyamulenge herders – a Kinyarwanda-speaking community that has been present in the highlands since the 17th century – were passing through the town when they were chased by the crowd. One of them, Fidèle Ntayoberwa, was lynched, burned and eaten. An investigation by the French daily newspaper Libération shed light on this event.
The tragedy of Kalima, as recounted in Libération, could have alerted public opinion and sparked a reaction. However, it perhaps disturbed the Western narrative of the war in Congo. “Hyperbole” and “simplification” have even minimised – putting victims and perpetrators on equal footing – a former member of the United Nations expert group for the Congo who now offers his expertise in a plethora of media outlets where his statements are never verified nor contradicted. Sixteen months later, in May and June 2024, Emmanuel Karegeya and Gatiyoni Munyabarenzi were lynched and eaten in a similar manner, met with general indifference. In August 2024, it would be Seruvumba Manirakiza’s turn.
Manirakiza, a Tutsi meat seller, would have celebrated his 37th birthday in November 2024 if he hadn’t crossed paths with militiamen from the National People’s Coalition for the Sovereignty of Congo (CNPSC) in Misisi, Fizi territory, South Kivu province, on the evening of 16 August 2024. The CNPSC is a coalition of Mai-Mai militias from South Kivu, led by William Yakutumba, a veteran of the armed struggle in this province with violently xenophobic ideas.
African Facts collected the testimony of a friend of Seruvumba’s who was with him and managed to escape, as well as several videos filmed by mobile phones that evening. In one of them, four young men can be seen crouching over Seruvumba’s corpse, their hands plunged into its entrails. “Here’s the meat! We’re going to finish it all !” they bellow. Their faces, hands and forearms are covered in blood. They tear out pieces of flesh and devour them or distribute them to the audience. In another video, young people stroll around haranguing the crowd while displaying an arm and a leg severed from Seruvumba’s remains. Others address their audience on social media in real time.
What is the motive for the crime? The militiamen use an armed robbery that occurred nearby a little earlier as a pretext. “They said that it is these people, these Tutsis, who bring insecurity to us here. They incited the crowd. They said that the ‘barengarenga’ want to destabilise Misisi”, witnesses told our correspondent in the Fizi territory. In images viewed by African Facts, the victim is referred to as “murengarenga”. This coded racist term, derived from the Swahili word “lengalenga”, meaning amaranth, is used to refer pejoratively to Rwandophones, mocking their supposed thinness, alleged insignificance as well as their pronunciation.
To date, no perpetrator of the four murders and acts of anthropophagy committed against Tutsi civilians in Kalima, Mugunga and Misisi has been prosecuted nor punished. No international media outlet has reported on this. Nor do they report on the racist ideology that has become hegemonic in Congolese cultural space and representations, to the extent that its victims are dehumanised and fetishised to the point of being eaten in public without raising any concerns.