DR Congo crisis: Pastor talks about his experience plundering Bukavu and contacting escaping Burundian and DR Congo troops

On Sunday, February 16, The New Times ran into Pastor Theoneste Ngirinshuti, 53, of Rusizi District, just after he had crossed immigration at Rusizi 1 Border Post. He appeared exhausted, but was relieved to have returned home safely.

The first AFC/M23 troops arrived at the Rwanda side of the border post at approximately 9:25 a.m. He claims that shortly after the city was overtaken by frantic scenes of looting and other criminal activities that began on Friday, February 14, he became trapped in Bukavu, the capital of the North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It all began early on Friday when the 53-year-old resident of Karambo Village, Cyangugu Cell, Kamembe Sector, in Rusizi District, left his house to travel to Bukavu for one of his frequent congregational prayer meetings. In addition to being a preacher who frequently travels to and from Bukavu for his Christian work, he has a successful smart phone store in the Congolese city.

But he was forced to stay overnight in the shop on Friday. He remembers how swiftly things had changed in a way that nobody had anticipated.

The increased level of insecurity in the city prevented Ngirinshuti from going home.

Kavumu airfield, a vital airbase roughly 25 kilometers north of Bukavu, was taken by AFC/M23 rebels that same day.

Videos of Congolese and Burundian troops escaping southward and in other places went viral on social media hours after it was captured. A tumultuous situation was developing in Bukavu.

In 2021, the Congolese army coalition began fighting the M23 rebels. The coalition included more than 10,000 Burundian troops, 1,600 European mercenaries, South Africa-led SADC forces, and the FDLR, a terrorist militia based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was founded by the masterminds of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi.

M23 is currently a member of the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), a broader rebel group that was established in December 2023.

According to the AFC, its struggle is for governance that upholds fundamental human rights, protects all citizens, and tackles the underlying causes of conflict. Among other evils that are pervasive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, its leaders have pledged to eradicate corruption, nepotism, tribalism, and the ideology of genocide.

On that same day, Ngirinshuti engaged with Burundian and Congolese soldiers, along with some of their militia friends, as they fled the conflict with the AFC/M23 rebels in the streets of Bukavu.

“All of the Burundians and Congolese I spoke with at the FARDC told me that they were going to the plains [Ruzizi Plain in South Kivu Province] in the Kamanyola areas, towards Burundi and Uvira,” he claimed. They appeared confused when I questioned them about why they were leaving us.

Some of them told me, “We have noticed that the government in Kinshasa has abandoned us, so we will take off these clothes when we move a distance away from here.” We’re not getting anything from it. We are sent to the [war] field, yet we are unpaid, lack the resources, and cannot let our families lose us.
He claimed that because all government security forces had left the city that evening, everyone he phoned was hopeful the rebels would arrive to free them.

He clarified that looting and vandalism began because of this security void.

Fortunately, there was no attack on his store, which is roughly 15 kilometers from the Rwandan border.

When he saw that there were not many robbers outside the store on Saturday night, he finally plucked up the guts to open the door, run away from them, and dash into a residential area until he eventually made his way back to Rwanda.