BBC investigates allegations of a bloodbath

Freddy Mukuza’s ultimate moments have been witnessed through a chum, who stood helpless, 50m (160 feet) away.

When he heard that Freddy were shot – through M23 rebels he was once informed – he and others in a bind to the scene in Goma, in jap Democratic Republic of Congo.

“When we arrived, we found Freddy still breathing, and wanted to take him away, but the M23 did not allow us,” says the good friend, who we’re calling Justin.

“When we insisted, they fired bullets into the ground as if to say: ‘If you dare cross this perimeter, we will kill you as well.'”

So that they needed to stock their distance, as Freddy, 31, took his latter breath. Handiest upcoming did the M23 let them way and remove his frame.

In a while prior to the killing, 3 pick-up vehicles stuffed with rebellion opponents had come to Freddy’s neighbourhood – Kasika.

It was once round 15:00 on Saturday 22 February – virtually a era later the rebellion crew had captured Goma in a fast journey in the course of the east of the rustic.

Inside an day or so, between 17 and 22 folk were killed, most commonly younger males, in line with our assets.

We’ve accrued impressive accounts from citizens, who can’t be recognized, for their very own coverage.

We requested the M23 for a reaction to the allegation that they performed a accumulation killing within the neighbourhood. They didn’t answer.

Officials in Kasika have no longer immune a demise toll, and there may be negligible or deny probability of an detached prison investigation into what citizens are calling a bloodbath.

However locals insist the M23 is the one armed crew which is able to perform freely, and kill to explode in extensive sunlight in Goma.

Since taking the town on the finish of January, the rebels were in whole keep an eye on. Throughout the 18 days we spent at the field, their authority was once absolute.

They’ve been accused within the future of wearing out atrocities in alternative farmlands.

The closely armed rebels don’t operate rejected. They’re subsidized through neighbouring Rwanda, in line with the UN and the United States. Rwanda denies this, regardless that it now not denies having its personal troops in DR Congo, pronouncing they’re there in self-defence.

It’s believed the M23 focused Kasika as a result of a former Congolese military bottom within the segment.

The Katindo camp is now closed however one of the vital squaddies and their households stay within the district.

“Not all the soldiers were able to run away,” an area resident explains. “Some threw away their guns and stayed about the neighbourhood.”

However Freddy Mukuza was once a civilian – a married father of 2, suffering to get through. When brittle instances got here, he earned a residing through taking passengers on his motorcycle.

He was once additionally an activist and songwriter who rapped concerning the many issues in his fatherland – a rustic affluent prosperous in minerals whose folk are among the poorest on the earth.

DR Congo is referred to as a playground of corruption and instability – and of battle, stretching again 30 years. This is if the rustic and its struggling are remembered in any respect.

Sexual violence is endemic. The federal government is vulnerable, at very best.

There was once enough quantity for Freddy to rap about.

One in every of his songs is known as Au Secours (Support in French), the lyrics stuffed with questions that experience long gone unanswered:

“Who will come to the aid of these people? Who will come to the aid of these raped women? Who will come to the aid of these unemployed men?… The people are in danger, they don’t have enough to eat. They [the authorities] buy jeeps.”

At the moment of his demise, Freddy was once shifting to a fresh leased pad in Kasika. His brother-in-law was once serving to him put a tarpaulin over the roof.

His sister-in-law was once there too, getting the home able for Freddy’s community. Once they heard the taking pictures, they have been inside of and in a bind to close the door, however they have been observable through the M23.

The rebels shot and killed Freddy’s two in-laws, in line with his good friend Justin.

Since upcoming, Justin has slightly left pad, no longer even to make cash. His community is surviving on vegatables and fruits. Tea is now a luxurious they can not manage to pay for.

He has prevented his youngsters going to college, for concern they may well be taken from their school rooms through the M23 and forcibly recruited.

“We believe it is more important that they stay alive,” he says.

His international has contracted to his personal 4 partitions. There may be the consistent nagging concern that the rebels may just go back looking for younger males.

Simply the optical of certainly one of their pick-up vehicles on the street sends locals operating, he says.

At the present time it’s uncommon to discover a crew of younger folk speaking in combination, he tells us, and neighbours deny lengthy percentage gripes concerning the government as they did prior to the rebellion takeover.

“Before, there was bad governance, but we were free,” he says. “There was embezzlement. There was mismanagement and we spoke out about that. We had the chance to go to court. Today, there is bad governance, but we live in terror and silence.”

Justin is chatting with us as a result of he desires Freddy Mukuza to be remembered, and he desires the out of doors international to find out about moment and demise below the M23.

For the reason that killings, Kasika has been shrouded in concern. Native reporters have no longer reported the tale.

However a shaky video was once posted on social media the nearest moment, 23 February, which seems to turn one of the vital sufferers: 10 our bodies are perceptible – dumped in a tangled heap, in an unfinished development. It’s non-transperant if any of the useless have been squaddies.

None are in uniform and there is not any signal of any guns.

Within the background there are yells and yells. One lady repeats over and over again: “There are 10 of them,” as she strikes from frame to frame.

“They are going to finish us all,” she says. “They killed all these young people. Isn’t that Junior? I think it is him. He is a house builder.”

With out the video, information of the killings would possibly no longer have unfold past the neighbourhood.

However the pictures had the facility to injury, even through the violent requirements of DR Congo.

Our assets say it’s original. One showed that the site proven is in Kasika.

He visited the playground later the our bodies have been moved. And he recognised a kind of observable crying within the video, from across the neighbourhood.

Two of our assets say the youngest to die in Kasika was once a boy elderly 13-14. {The teenager} was once inside of his own residence, hiding at the back of his sisters.

“The M23 said: ‘If this boy does not come with us, we will kill all of you,'” one guy informed us.

The boy was once upcoming led away to his demise.

There was once additionally a tender lady a few of the sufferers. She were promoting milk at the overcrowded streets.

Additionally killed – any other side road dealer, in his twenties.

When the taking pictures began, he was once sitting in his familiar spot – at the pavement out of doors his personal entrance door, promoting airtime for cellphones and home-made doughnuts.

He was once overheard pleading with the rebels: “I’m not a soldier.

“I simply promote airtime. Glance, those are my issues – my airtime and my basket of doughnuts.”

Then he ran. One of his friends takes up the story. We are calling him John.

“I used to be in the home, and I heard gunfire,” John tells us. “Folk have been pronouncing: ‘They’re taking younger folk through drive.’ I noticed folk operating, together with my good friend, so I ran with them.

“When we reached the main road, there was shooting, and I heard gunfire behind me and somebody fell.”

That was once the doughnut vendor.

In spite of his past, he was once nonetheless in secondary faculty, in his ultimate yr. He was once a willing pupil who had a overdue get started as a result of his community may just no longer manage to pay for to coach him.

However John says: “Like all young people, he had a dream.” In his case, it was once to be an engineer.

John says the rebels didn’t support who they killed.

“There was no inquiry before shooting,” he tells us. “They just shot at everyone who was present, and at people who ran away, in two different directions.”

When the M23 captured Goma, they introduced that they had deny prisons. John says deny additional rationalization was once wanted: “That meant whoever is presumed to be a government soldier, or a thief, or whoever makes a mistake, will be killed – immediately.”

Weeks on, few have dared to talk out. “No-one wants to be next,” John says.

Bereaved households have held tiny rapid burials – with out the familiar mourning at pad.

“The rebels didn’t want any funerals,” says one resident, who we’re calling Deborah. “They didn’t even want people to cry. We thought they were coming to bring peace, but instead they came to exterminate us. They took everyone they found on the street.”

As the lads have been being rounded up, she attempted to step out of doors. The rebels ordered her again in, at gunpoint.

Denis Baeni was once on his manner pad when the rebels arrived in Kasika. He dashed right into a tiny store to cover with a couple of others, our assets say.

The principle faculty professor were given his ID card out of a region. He will have idea that may save him, through proving he was once a civilian.

A neighbour – with wisdom of the occasions – tells us what took place. We’re calling her Rebecca.

“They heard a voice from outside asking: ‘Are there any soldiers?'” Rebecca says. “They said no but the M23 took them out of the shop.”

The lads have been informed to move a trim distance to a half-built area the place they have been “assembled for execution”.

“There was so much gunfire,” she says. “It was so close. There were 21 people killed all at once from our neighbourhood. Many were just passing by.”

Rebecca insists they have been all civilians. “Not one was a soldier,” she says.

Denis leaves at the back of two youngsters, who he was once elevating rejected.

Loss of life isn’t the one threat right here. Locals additionally face the danger of being recruited to combat – eagerly or differently.

“Nowadays men have to be home by 17:30,” says Rebecca. “By 18:00 it’s dark, and they can take you very easily.”

As households in Kasika are pressured to impede their disaster, the M23 are proceeding their sweep thru jap DR Congo.

Then Goma, they took keep an eye on the town of Bukavu in mid-February. They’ve threatened to journey all of the technique to the capital, Kinshasa, 1,600km (virtually 1,000 miles) away.

They declare they’re revolutionaries fighting a failed shape, and protecting the rights of minority Tutsis.

Human rights teams paint an overly other image.

They’ve accused the armed crew of a list of abuses since its substructure in 2012 – together with systematic shelling of civilian farmlands, gang rape and “summary executions”. The allegations were documented in a form of news.

In a contemporary BBC interview, I requested rebellion chief, Corneille Nangaa, for a reaction. He heads a coalition of political events and militias – known as the Congo River Alliance – which contains the M23.

“I didn’t see the reports,” he mentioned. “I cannot respond for the report that I didn’t read”. He additionally mentioned he was once no longer anxious through the allegations.

Driven on why he had no longer learn the stories, he mentioned: “Give me one, I will be reading it.”

Nangaa, a former head of DR Congo’s electoral fee, alternates between fight fatigues and roguish fits.

He’s introduced because the unarmed and unthreatening face of the rebels, however the Congolese govt is providing a $5m (£4m) praise for info chief to his arrest.

The rebels aren’t rejected in having a historical past of brutality. The similar applies to the Congolese military, and to lots of the alternative armed teams in jap DR Congo.

However the M23 are actually the one authority in portions of the east, and thousands and thousands of Congolese are at their oblivion.

As we spoke to at least one resident of Kasika, his spouse known as him, asking him to return briefly to jerk their eight-year-old son from faculty.

Panic was once spreading as a result of stories the M23 have been taking youngsters from their school rooms.

He were given his kid pad safely however fears for the generation.

“We are all traumatised. They said they came to liberate us,” he mentioned. “But now it’s like they are taking us hostage. “

Spare reporting from the BBC’s Wietske Burema.