At the beginning of December 2022, allegations of massacres committed by the M23 rebels in Kishishe, Rutshuru territory, in the eastern DR Congo began to surface from different sources.

First, from Congolese military and civilian authorities who issued several statements about the situation in Kishishe with an ever-growing number of victims, and then from UN investigators who alleged that an estimated 131 civilians, including women and children, had been killed by the M23 rebels.

For a careful observer, as horrifying as the different allegations were, one thing about them remained problematic: no investigation on the spot had been conducted to confirm these allegations.

On the one hand, the Congolese government had lost control of Kishishe, which had fallen under the control of the rebels. On the other hand, the UN claimed that their investigators could not access Kishishe due to security concerns - indicating that the UN did not trust the rebels to provide security for their staff.

Fortunately, one independent team made of two investigative journalists and a human right lawyer made a different choice and decided to trust the M23 to guarantee their safety. They travelled to Kishishe and what they discovered confirmed an old saying: the first casualty of war is the truth.

During the fact-finding mission, which lasted five days, investigative journalists Marc Hoogsteyns and Adeline Umutoni, and human rights lawyer, Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza, were able to establish, among other things, that: