Thousands of people from the Itombwe sector in Mwenga territory in the South Kivu province in eastern Congo continue to flee violent fighting between the Burundian rebels of Red-Tabara and the FDNB (Force de la Défense Nationale du Burundi ). The rebels claim to have killed about forty Burundian soldiers.
A spokesman for the Burundian army mocks them.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Civil society in the Itombwe sector announces that the inhabitants of the villages of Malanda, Ngumiyano, Kaberukwa, Ibaciro, Nalubombeko, Acika and Ilambo have fled their homes. Some have headed to the village of Kitibingi, others have found refuge in Kitopu while another part has fled to the natural forest of Itombwe.

According to local administrators, the displaced are exposed to diseases because they spend the night in the forest during this rainy season.

« They are also exposed to insecurity because in the forest there is neither army nor police. It is the rebels who are the masters of the forest, » they say. Residents told SOS Médias Burundi that they had noticed a large presence of Mai-Mai militiamen.

In a statement released Saturday by the Burundian rebels of Red-Tabara, the armed group announced that its fighters have been fighting for over a week with the Burundian army and the Mai-Mai in Ngumiyano, Kaberukwa and Ibaciro in the Itombwe sector.

These Burundian rebels say that in these fights, they killed 45 Burundian soldiers and injured 32 others.

Brigadier General Gaspard Baratuza, in charge of communications and public relations within the FDNB, chose X (Formerly Twitter) to respond to Red-Tabara.

« Red-Tabara, losing momentum after suffering heavy losses in its combat adventures, quickly rushed to launch press releases to console itself by invoking the results of others (FDNB) without saying anything on its side, » he wrote.

Women and children from the Banyamulenge community displaced by the war in South Kivu (SOS Médias Burundi)

Since 2018, the Burundian army has been pursuing the Red-Tabara rebels in South Kivu, sometimes aided by the Imbonerakure (members of the youth league of the CNDD-FDD, the presidential party in Burundi) and the Mai-Mai militiamen. The armed group also had Mai-Mai with whom it collaborated. But there are some who have withdrawn. It was only in August 2022 that the Burundian military authorities recognized the presence of the FDNB in ​​South Kivu, evoking a bilateral partnership between the Burundian and Congolese governments. Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye would later confirm this.

Since then, the Burundian rebels have lost their bases in Kiryama, Kitavuzampegere, Malimba, Masango, Rugezi, Kabanja, Tabunde and Ngumiyano, which were located in the territories of Uvira, Fizi and Mwenga.

Last August, the Burundian army, supported by the Mai-Mai Yakutumba faction and the FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo), chased the Burundian rebels from the villages of Rugezi and Kabanja. They are located in the Ngandja sector. They went to settle in Itombwe in the Mwenga territory.

Red-Tabara is on the Burundian government’s list of terrorist movements. Burundian authorities remain convinced that it is equipped and maintained by Rwanda, which led them to close the land borders with Rwanda in January 2024. Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye has declared that his Rwandan counterpart is « the enemy of Burundi and a destabiliser of the sub-region ». The Rwandan government responded that « there is no truth in President Evariste Ndayishimiye’s words ».

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A village burned by Mai-Mai militiamen in Fizi, one of the territories where the Burundian army and the Red-Tabara rebels are fighting (SOS Médias Burundi)