Rebels in eastern Congo abducted 130 hospital patients, UN says

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Rwanda-backed M23 rebels abducted at least 130 sick and wounded men from two hospitals in a major city in eastern Congo, the United Nations said Monday.

On Feb. 28, M23 fighters raided the CBCA Ndosho Hospital and Heal Africa Hospital in Goma, a strategic city they seized earlier this year, the U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, said in a statement.

The rebels took 116 patients from CBCA and 15 others from Heal Africa they suspected of being Congolese army soldiers or members of the pro-government Wazalendo militia.

“It is deeply distressing that M23 is snatching patients from hospital beds in coordinated raids and holding them incommunicado in undisclosed locations,” Shamdasani said, calling for their immediate release.

M23 rebels have swept through eastern Congo since the beginning of the year, seizing key cities and killing some 3,000 people in the most significant escalation of conflict in over a decade.

In a lightning three-week offensive, the M23 took control of eastern Congo’s main city Goma and seized the second largest city, Bukavu. The region is rich in gold and coltan, a key mineral for the production of capacitors used in most consumer electronics, such as laptops and smartphones.

The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

Rwanda has accused Congo of enlisting ethnic Hutu fighters responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

M23 says it’s fighting to protect Tutsis and Congolese of Rwandan origin from discrimination and wants to transform Congo from a failed state to a modern one. Analysts have called those pretexts for Rwanda’s involvement.

At least 11 people were killed and scores injured last week when explosions in Bukavu struck a rally held by leaders of the M23 rebel group.