SOS Médias Burundi

Cibitoke, 16 May 2025- Two former Congolese military uniform corpses were discovered on 15 May at the end of April in the Rusiga village, in the Rugombo district of the province of Cibitoke (northwest Burundi), on the border between the small east African nation and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A mysterious case that raises countless questions from the local population.

According to residents of Rusiga village, children grazing goats near the Rusizi River saw the two dead bodies floating near the 11th Avenue. Alerted, Burundian security agents on a patrol duty quickly invest the place. They confirmed that it was the men carrying the uniform of the Congolese army (FARDC).

But what initially appeared to be an isolated incident quickly became the subject of heated speculation. Several security sources in the region maintain that the victims were not Congolese soldiers, but rather young Imbonerakure—members of the youth wing of Burundi’s ruling CNDD-FDD party—who were sent to fight alongside the FARDC against the M23 rebels.

« Some of them apparently tried to flee the front, which led to their execution to prevent the leakage of sensitive information, » confided a local security source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The mystery deepened further when a vehicle with license plate D0517A, known to belong to the National Intelligence Service (SNR) in Cibitoke, quickly arrived at the scene to recover the bodies. Their destination remains unknown.

Contacted by SOS Médias Burundi, the local head of the intelligence declined to comment. The district administrator of Rugombo acknowledged the discovery of the bodies, while stating that he was awaiting the conclusions of an investigation report prepared by an SNR agent.

This is not the first time that gruesome discoveries have rocked this border province. In recent years, several lifeless bodies have been recovered from the Rusizi River or found in ditches, sometimes mutilated or tied up. Each time, the exact circumstances of these deaths remain unclear, and the announced investigations struggle to deliver clear conclusions.

The repetition of these incidents, often accompanied by silence or vagueness from the authorities, fuels a climate of fear and suspicion in this region already marked by cross-border tensions and the activities of the intelligence services.

While awaiting clarification, the population remains in shock. « We don’t know who these dead are, or why they were killed here. And no one dares to ask too many questions, » confided a resident of Rusiga.

The authorities’ silence only fuels fear and questions in a region where insecurity never seems to be completely eliminated.

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Two men on a boat in the Rusizi River, not far from where the two bodies were found (SOS Médias Burundi)