Congo’s ‘other’ conflict kills thousands in west near capital

DAKAR, Senegal – A little-known conflict in the west of Congo is raging close to the country’s capital, Kinshasa, one of the largest cities in Africa.

Nine soldiers and 70 militia members died in clashes July 13 in Kinsele, a village 80 miles east of Kinshasa, according to local authorities. It was the latest surge of violence in an area where thousands of civilians have been killed and more than 550,000 displaced since 2022, according to estimates from humanitarian organizations and United Nations agencies.

The initial spark for the conflict two years ago was a tax dispute between local ethnic groups, the Teke and the Yaka. It has since billowed into a fight over land access, with a bloody trail of summary executions, burned villages and sexual violence.

A militia pretending to defend some of the communities in the area has enlisted child soldiers, forced women to marry its fighters and looted villagers’ crops, sending people fleeing toward Kinshasa, humanitarian groups and U.N. experts say.

This conflict is unfolding 900 miles away from a larger crisis that has plagued eastern Congo for the past three decades, killing about 6 million people and displacing nearly 7 million others.

From tax dispute to interethnic violence

For decades, two main ethnic groups in the western Congo region, the Teke and the Yaka, lived in relative peace in Mai-Ndombe province under a mutually agreed rule: The Yaka rented land from the Teke, considered the customary landowners, by paying a tax on the crop they cultivated, regional experts said.

When Teke chiefs increased the tax in 2022, the Yaka refused to pay. One heated confrontation led to another, and soon farmers, mostly from the Yaka community, were forcing Teke villagers off their lands, according to human rights organizations and U.N. experts.

“There’s now a lot of mistrust between populations who used to live together,” said Liliane Bitong Ambassa, head of the Congo mission for Caritas International Belgium.

A militia, mostly made up of recruits from the Yaka community as well as others from ethnic groups including the Suku, Mbala and Songo, emerged in 2022 and grew throughout last year into a ruthless force. Its fighters wield military-style weapons and have seized dozens of villages in the provinces of neighboring Kinshasa.

The attackers who targeted Congolese soldiers in the village of Kinsele on July 13 were from that militia, known as the Mobondo. No civilians were killed; they had fled days earlier after a first assault by Mobondo fighters, according to local officials.

“Surrounding villages are also emptying themselves because villagers fear that they’re next in line,” David Bissaka, a local representative, said in a telephone interview.

Militia members sent to Congo’s east

The initial crisis in one community has now grown into a war plaguing four provinces.

Mobondo fighters now control large swaths of land, making aid access difficult. The Mobondo also ambush traders and seize crops to feed their fighters or finance their war effort, according to human rights groups and local news reports.

They have also tortured local residents and kidnapped them for ransom, according to the United Nations. A report by Caritas and local religious organizations last year highlighted cases of forced recruitment of young men, including minors, rape, sexual slavery and executions – “often by beheading.” Congolese soldiers also force women to marry them, according to Caritas.

“Getting a clear picture of the number of deaths and displacements is a real challenge,” Bitong Ambassa said. “But in every village we visit, we hear about deaths, deaths, deaths.”

The Congolese military and police still control the main roads in the region, but Mobondo fighters run military outposts in the villages they’ve seized, according to U.N. experts and humanitarian organizations.

To quell the violence, the Congolese military has conscripted about 1,000 of those involved in the conflict, including fighters from the Mobondo militia, according to U.N. experts.

They have been sent to north Kivu, at the opposite end of the country in the east, to fight the M23, a rebel group seeking to control the regional capital. The Congolese government, the United Nations and the United States say M23 is backed by neighboring Rwanda, which that country denies.

Fragile peace agreement

In April, leaders from the Teke and Yaka communities signed a peace agreement in front of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi. But the agreement has yet to be made public, and Mobondo fighters attacked a village just days after the warring parties signed it.

Then came the July 13 attack on soldiers .

“What do they want? We don’t know,” Bissaka said about the militia members.

The conflict has created a displacement and food crisis as 80% of fields in the conflict areas aren’t accessible, according to Caritas.

For now, the violence is not directly threatening Kinshasa, a sprawling metropolis of more than 15 million people.

But thousands of those displaced have found refuge in the capital, according to OCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency.

“This crisis is overshadowed by the other crisis in the east,” Bitong Ambassa said. “But in some courtyards of Kinshasa, you’ll find 100, 200 people who have fled the violence from these areas.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.