DRC: 22 years after the massacre, return to Kasika where the wounds of the mass graves remain alive

In South Kivu, DRC, more than 1,000 people died in 1998 in a massact in Kasika.

FEDERICO SCOPPA / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

5 mins

A sit-in is scheduled for Friday, September 4 in front of the Rwandan embassy in Kinshasa.

It is organized by several civil society movements that demand the resignation of Ambassador Vincent Karega after a Tweet deemed negationist on the massacre in Kasika, a village in South Kivu, in 1998. The Rwandan diplomat had spoken of propaganda on the implication of the Rwandan army in this massacre.

However, according to the UN, it is indeed the rebels of the RCD and the Rwandan soldiers who are responsible for the deaths of more than a thousand people.

On the spot still dominates the feeling of injustice.

Publicity

Read more

With our special

correspondent

in Kasika

,

William Basimike

"This 

is the place where we buried

the victims of the Kasika massacres

 ", Musombwa Amuli Gaetan is one of Kasika's notables.

He survived the massacre of 1998, it is he who shows us around some mass graves: “ 

Here, there are 14 people who were buried.

They were massacred in the plot of mwami François Mubeza III.

They came as friends, the mwami gave them a goat, and then they started to kill people.

They would take small children and hit them on the walls before going to throw them somewhere in the toilet there.

Until now, we are traumatized, we demand justice!

 "

Sitting in front of his hut, Meschac Wilondja is a resident of the neighboring village of Kalama.

Now the father of six children, he was 23 when he met his executioners on his way on August 24, 1998, when he was going to the market with five of his friends: “ 

They had gongs and little pickaxes with which they hit us.

My five companions died on the spot.

By the grace of God, I got up later and found that around me there were only corpses, especially women and children.

In any case until today, I am not normal, I am sick.

I no longer like going to places like markets or participating in bereavements.

I no longer like to see the military outfit because suddenly, these bad memories come back to me.

Here at home, more than 1,300 people perished in the villages of the Lwindi chiefdom.

The international community must be able to help us understand why our brothers died.

 "

Every morning, Catholic Christians participate in mass in the parish of Saint Joseph Mukasa of Kasika in front of which a memorial has been erected.

Father Patrick Matete Mukendi is vicar: “ 

We are faced with a population that is in great need of psychological assistance to recover.

It is not easy to teach this population, it only takes a little word to see the tears flow in the audience.

Overall, they want justice more than forgiveness.

 "

22 years have passed, weeds have grown on the mass graves, but the inhabitants of this village say they keep the memory, hoping that one day justice will be done.

There are some mouths who dare to say that no in Kasika, at the Kasika massacre, there were two or three deaths, it is really a provocation.

A provocation that we cannot tolerate.

Laban Kyalangalilwa Kashande, president of the banyindu community, the most affected by the Kasika massacres

William basimike

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • DRC