A Rwandan congressman describes a terrifying encounter with FDLR militia members

Etienne Nsabimana Mvano, a member of parliament, has once again drawn attention to the danger that the Congolese government-backed FDLR genocidal group poses to Rwanda’s security in an effort to undermine it.

At a February 21 plenary session of the Rwandan Parliament, the former executive secretary of a sector in the Rubavu District that borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo described his personal encounters with FDLR infiltrators, including an attack on his home in 2016.

The European Parliament passed a resolution on February 13 that the Rwandan Parliament denounced on Friday. Rwandan legislators said that the EU Parliament’s biased narrative purposefully hid Rwanda’s justifiable security concerns as well as the underlying reasons of unrest in eastern DR Congo.

Amidst the current situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the European Parliament failed to include the FDLR murderous militia in its resolution, which Parliament condemned.

According to Mvano, the DR Congo attacks Rwanda in coordination with armed organizations who espouse genocide ideology. He claimed that these armed organizations are located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and get equipment and other forms of support to undermine Rwanda’s security.

Mvano was the Executive Secretary of Rubavu District for 18 years, from 2006 to 2024, prior to becoming an MP.

“I am saying this as someone who has dealt with the issue for more than 18 years while working in Rubavu District, on the [Rwanda] border with DR Congo, in sectors that border DR Congo, including Bugeshi, Busasamana, and Cyanzarwe,” he stated.

We were the target of several attacks. One was even launched at 12 a.m. on April 2016, right in front of my house. I hadn’t spent the night there. I used to reside with some police officers, but they [FDLR] slaughtered them and went back to DR Congo,” he claimed.

In general, “the attackers killed people, and injured others, in those sectors,” he stated.

Mvano said that in order to host FDLR militants, the Congolese government first placed them in a group named Nyatura and then, in the middle of 2022, in a new organization called Wazalendo, which helped to hide their identities. The latter, the congressman clarified, are those who have been given firearms and brainwashed with genocidal ideology in order to murder Congolese Tutsis.

He stated, “I am saying this because DR Congo is trying to hide its role in the deaths of the Tutsi Congolese today.”

Mvano said that the Congolese government utilized the tactic of telling the world that Rwanda is to blame for DR Congo’s issues in order to conceal its involvement in abuses of human rights against its own citizens.

He went on to say that Kinshasa accomplishes this by persuading the European Union and the rest of the world that Rwanda supports armed groups who want to plunder the Democratic Republic of the Congo for its resources.

As to the decision passed by the Rwandan Parliament, the FDLR, a genocidal militia founded by the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, is the most notable of the more than 250 armed organizations that have made eastern DR Congo their stronghold.

In the last thirty years, the Congolese government has carried out massacres with the help of the FDLR, killing thousands of Congolese Tutsis and forcing hundreds of thousands more to flee to other countries in the region, including Rwanda, where 100,000 Congolese refugees are currently being held.

The FDLR genocidal militia’s ongoing attacks and cross-border shelling into Rwanda with the Congolese government’s help were also mentioned. These included the deadly attacks in Kinigi (in Musanze District) in October 2019 and more recently in Rubavu District on January 26 that left 16 people dead, 177 injured, and a lot of property destroyed.

The administration has started to repair the damage in Rubavu District brought on by shelling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.