Metro

Zimbabwe ejects 70 Congolese refugees from camps for looting food supplies

Published

1 year ago

April 21, 2022

The Zimbabwean government has forcibly ejected 70 DR Congo refugees and returned them to their country after it was discovered they had looted food and medical supplies donated by donor agencies.

A report released by a human rights agency in the country on Wednesday, noted the refugees who were hosted at the Tongogara refugee camp, were “accused of looting a food supply warehouse” and were initially arrested in August 2021.

“The government forcibly returned approximately 70 of these refugees to the DRC in violation of international law according to an international organisation,” the report says.

“DRC authorities rejected approximately 15 of these refugees, whom the government then placed in detention facilities in Harare,” it added.

“As of November last year, the Tongogara Refugee Camp hosted 15,797 refugees and asylum seekers, despite the facility being designed to host 3,000 refugees.

“The majority of refugees are from the DRC representing 76 percent of the bulk, followed by Mozambique at 11 percent, Burundi at six percent and Rwanda five percent,” another report in the media stated.

The United Nations Refugees agency which frowned at the eviction of the Congolese refugees, said before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, an estimated 100 refugees and asylum seekers arrived at the camp every month, but the report however, said they faced abuse from security forces in Zimbabwe.

“Security forces routinely detained migrants, who lacked identification documents or permits to be in the country and held them in prisons with convicted criminals

“This prolonged detention was common and migrants complained of mistreatment by other prisoners and poor amenities at the facilities,” the report said.

Related Topics:DR Congo Featured Refugees Zimbabwe

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Metro

Rwandan President, Kagame sacks over 200 military personnel in major shake-up

Published

19 hours ago

June 7, 2023

Akanimoh Etim

Rwandan President, Paul Kagame has sacked over 200 soldiers including top military brass and commanders from the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) in a massive shake-up.

The dismissed officers include the former Commander of the Reserve Forces, Maj. Gen. Aloys Muganga, and Brig. Gen. Francis Mutiganda, a former Head of External Security in the National Intelligence Services, as well as 14 senior officers.

The announcement of the sacking of the officers which was contained in a statement released by the RDF on Wednesday, did not give reason for the sackings, but the move come a day after the president reshuffled the top echelon of the country’s military, which saw the firing of the Defence Minister and an Army Chief.

The sacking of the soldiers has further heightened tension between Rwanda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, with each side accusing the other of working with rebels to topple one another’s governments, according to reports in local media.

Metro

UN war crimes court declares Rwandan genocide suspect, Felicien Kabuga unfit to stand trial

Published

20 hours ago

June 7, 2023

Akanimoh Etim

An 88-year-old Rwandan genocide suspect, Felicien Kabuga has been declared unfit to stand trial by judges at a United Nations War Crimes Court in The Hague.

In a decision published by the court on Wednesday, the judges acknowledged that Kabuga was no longer able to actively participate in his trial, and rather proposed an alternative process that aims to resemble a trial but does not allow for a conviction instead of stopping the proceedings completely.

“The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial,” the publication said.

“The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, therefore, finds that Mr. Kabuga is not fit for trial and is very unlikely to regain fitness in the future.

“It is therefore agreed to adopt an alternative finding procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction,” it added.

Kabuga who was arrested in Paris where he had been in hiding under a false identity for several years, was one of the most wanted suspects of the Rwandan genocide, and was charged at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with genocide and crimes against humanity.

At his initial arraignment in September last year, the ICC heard that Kabuga was alleged to have been the main financier of the ethnic Hutu militias who slaughtered over 800,000 minority Tutsis as well as political opponents during the genocide in 1994.

According to the UN, Kabuga, a wealthy businessman from the Hutu ethnic group, had established and financed an infamous media outfit, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which was notorious for inciting violence and promoting the targeting and elimination of individuals from the Tutsi ethnic group who were referred to as “Cockroaches”.

Kabuga was arrested in Paris in 2020 after decades on the run and sent for trial in The Hague where he pleaded not guilty to charges of sponsoring the infamous Hutu radical radio station urging people to kill Tutsi “cockroaches”.

He also denied supplying machetes and supporting the murderous Interahamwe Hutu militia.