On April 18, 2023, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo sent out a brief tweet saying that in the first two weeks of April, attacks on civilians resulted in the death of at least 150 civilians in Ituri Province, which is located in the northeastern part of DR Congo. OCHA is by no means a major UN operation whose information should not be taken lightly. However, the tweet itself lacked context or even a call to action that we would expect from an office of this caliber, given their mandate. That 150 innocent civilians are killed by armed groups and you do not hear of any outcry, not from the UN agencies or any other humanitarian bodies or even lack media appetite, explains the complexity of the security challenges in DR Congo. In another tweet, a long-serving European correspondent in eastern DR Congo gave the context to this; he said that since the armed group responsible for the attacks is not M23 – perhaps only because this is far from their area of operation – no one outside of Ituri province would care. Such has been the pattern where, the international obsession with M23, which is one of over 120 armed Allied Democratic Alliance, an outfit that hails from Uganda, to continue with their killing spree. Besides, militia groups that are working closely with the Congolese armed forces FARDC including the genocidal group, FDLR, continue to have a free-reign targeting civilian population without any consequence. This therefore vindicates those who are calling for a holistic approach to solving security challenges that have inhibited DR Congo for three decades, instead of just focusing on one group that is M23, which actually the government of DR Congo has refused to engage with, calling them terrorists. Until all stakeholders, especially the Congolese government, recognize that all these militia groups carry an equal threat and set out to see to it that reasons why they thrive are addressed is that time that the Congolese people will be able to have a good night sleep.] Unfortunately, the poor are the ones that always bear the brunt of death at worst, or being dispossessed of their belongings and cast into the life of uncertainty either as refugees in neighbouring countries or internally displaced in their own country.
