East Congo rebels abduct at least 130 hospital patients, UN says

4/3/2025 13:55

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels launching an offensive in east Congo abducted at least 130 sick and wounded men from two hospitals in the city of Goma last week, the United Nations said on Monday.



M23 fighters raided CBCA Ndosho Hospital and Heal Africa Hospital during the night of February 28, taking 116 and 15 patients respectively, U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.



The abducted men were suspected of being Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers or members of a pro-government militia known as Wazalendo.



Shamdasani said, calling for their immediate release, "It is deeply distressing that M23 is snatching patients from hospital beds in coordinated raids and holding them incommunicado in undisclosed locations."



The Tutsi-led M23 marched into the city of Goma at the end of January and have since made an unprecedented advance into east Congo, seizing territory and gaining access to valuable minerals.



Their ongoing advance, which started in late December, is already the gravest escalation a long-running conflict rooted in the spillover into Congo of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo's vast mineral resources.



Congo, U.N. experts and Western powers accuse Rwanda of backing the group.