DR Congolese armed forces said on Wednesday that they had killed Rwandan rebel leader Sylvestre Mudacumura, who was wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
The army said in a statement that Mudacumura and some of his fighters were killed during military operations in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province overnight to Wednesday.
It called on other armed groups to lay down their weapons and turn themselves in to avoid “suffering the same fate as Mudacumura.”
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Mudacumura led the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia group in North Kivu made up of mostly Rwandan Hutu fighters which is said to have killed numerous civilians during attacks on eastern Congolese villages.
The ICC had issued an arrest warrant for Mudacumura in 2012 for nine counts of war crimes committed in 2009 and 2010, including murder, mutilation, rape, torture, destruction of property and pillaging.
The court said that Mudacumura’s orders as the top military commander of the FDLR allegedly had “a direct effect on the commission of the crimes”.
Numerous militias and rebel groups are active in the troubled provinces of North and South Kivu. While some conflicts have ethnic components, many are also about control of the country’s lucrative natural mineral resources. (NAN)
