Shells hit a displacement camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), prompting aid workers to temporarily evacuate and resulting in up to 40 reported deaths and many others injured, with children among the casualties, Save the Children said.
Save the Children, along with a local NGO partner, was present at the Lushagala camp for the distribution of hygiene kits when a shell exploded approximately 30 metres ahead of their vehicle. The shell detonated near a bustling market within the overcrowded displacement camp outside of Goma.
Friday’s explosions targeted the camps in Lac Vert and Mugunga, near the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, the UN said in a statement. The attacks, in which at least 20 people were injured, were a “flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and may constitute a war crime”, it said.
A resident of one of the camps told said that many of the victims were sleeping in their tents when the area was attacked.
“We started running as the bombs were fired at the camp,” the resident said.
The Congolese military and the United States accused the military in neighbouring Rwanda and the M23 rebel group of being behind the attacks. On Saturday, Rwanda denied the US accusations as “ridiculous”.
Government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) is a “professional army” that would never attack displaced people. In a post on X, Makolo instead blamed the assault on militias supported by the Congolese military.
Lieutenant-Colonel Guillaume Njike Kaiko, a spokesperson for the DRC’s army in the region, said the attacks were retaliation for earlier DRC strikes on Rwandan army positions in which arms and ammunition were destroyed.
In a social media post, government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya also blamed the M23, which has taken over swaths of North Kivu in the last two years. The DRC, the UN and Western countries have said Rwanda is supporting the group in a bid to control mines and mineral resources. Rwanda has denied the allegations.
