‘I’m a Civilian. I’m Innocent’: Who’s in Congo’s Mass Graves?
Mr. Ruphin, a shopkeeper originally from the neighboring Katanga region, which he fled a few years ago
because of violence, said soldiers had tried to dress him up as a Kamwina Nsapu militia member and get him to work as their informant.
Ruphin said that The Kamwina Nsapu and the government are just as bad as one another,
The slaughter in Nganza was part of a wider conflict
that has engulfed the Kasai, a region in the center of this vast country, where government forces are fighting a militia opposed to President Joseph Kabila.
The violence, rooted in political and economic grievances, was ignited last August when troops killed the group’s leader, a hereditary chief who went by the name
of Kamwina Nsapu (pronounced ka-MEE-na SA-poo) meaning "black ant." His followers, many of them children, retaliated, and the conflict spread like wildfire.
Ruphin said that If you carry an electoral card, the Kamwina Nsapu consider you on the side of the government,
The government cites violence in the Kasai as one reason not to hold a vote this year,
but critics accuse the president — who has already been in power for 16 years — of trying to buy time to allow him to change the Constitution and run for a third term.
Jose Maria Aranaz said that It’s the worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in a decade, when both sides have committed serious crimes,
