Several innocent civilians have been killed and many others left injured in the South Kivu Province, after a drone shelled bombs onto the small hamlet of Minembwe.
Reports from the Democratic Republic of Congo claim that the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) shelled the village after wrongly suspecting that the M23 rebels and their supporters the Congo River Alliance (AFC) were holed up in the area.
It is reported that a number of drones had previously circled over Minembwe village, as the FARDC forces took pictures of what they suspected to be the hideouts of their warring targets, from the air.
Later, the worst happened! Some Russian-made Soukhoï planes, allegedly belonging to the Congolese Armed Forces, started dropping bombs onto the village of Minembwe.
What irked many people in the precinct is that the village has been a quiet and tranquil place.
“There has never been any fighting or any form of battle in this place,” lamented the villagers.
One of the sites which was bombed by the FARDC happens to be the Minembwe aerodrome with a runway usually used only for commercial and humanitarian purposes.
The said airfield was the only way out for patients to be repatriated for proper medical care as well as receiving of medicines and other supplies for the area.
In another development, the Alliance Fleuve du Congo (AFC) and M23 Rebel-coalition’s influence in Eastern DR Congo has continued to grow with local militia groups and other important individuals opting to join in the rebels’ mission.
Two of the most influential militia groups in eastern DRC, the Front Commun de la Résistance (FCR), a platform composed of the armed groups FPP-AP of Kabido and NDC-R/M of Mapenzi, have pledged their allegiance to the AFC and M23 rebels’ coalition.
The FCR groups had been fighting against the AFC and M23 rebels before. Recently they fell out of favor with Tshisekedi and decided to take another side.
In a recently released statement, the FCR groups’ spokesperson Augustin Darwin justified the groups’ decision due to the Congolese military’s illegal activities and lack of support from government.
He mentions that the Congolese Military have transformed themselves into mineral traders, the unexplained withdrawal of the military from the front, committing acts of pillage, rape and harassment of populations as they pass through entities.