DRC Journalists Die Under Bombs: Media Under Fire in East
The ink on Trump's Washington peace accord wasn't even dry when Congolese soil started trembling again. Between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, promises of calm in the Great Lakes evaporated against the brutal reality of renewed combat.
The AFC/M23 movement, which claims to defend the Tutsi minority but dances to Kigali's tune according to UN experts, has multiplied its offensives. The result: the fall of Uvira, that strategic South Kivu city that locked access to Bujumbura. A devastating blow to Congolese defense forces and their Burundian allies.
Accusations fly from all sides. Accord violations, ethnic tensions, control of precious minerals - eastern Congo remains the playground of every appetite. No surprise the European Union sanctioned Gasabo's gold refinery and several Rwandan bigshots. EU sanctions cast shadow over Rwanda's mining boom.
The humanitarian toll remains horrific: thousands dead, over 5 million internally displaced, and nearly 1.5 million refugees scattered across the region.
Reporters in the Crosshairs
In this spiral of violence, journalists pay the ultimate price. The NGO Journaliste en Danger sounds the alarm: never has the profession been more dangerous in the region. More than half of all journalists killed in DRC over the past thirty years died in the country's east.
These past days, two reporters lost their lives, perfectly illustrating the conflict's brutality. In Kiliba, ten kilometers from Uvira, Lwesho Janvier Nyakirigo from Radio Kiliba FM died in a bomb explosion attributed to M23 fighters. The International Contact Group for the Great Lakes, gathering Western chancelleries, denounces the use of kamikaze drones blindly targeting civilians.
Further north in Goma, Magloire Paluku, owner of Kivu1 FM and emblematic AFC-M23 figure, was gunned down outside his home. Hours before his death, an audio recording revealed his scathing criticism of the rebellion, betraying internal tensions undermining the movement.
Audio source published by Byobe Makenga: Facebook Recording
As the region sinks deeper into violence, the media ecosystem crumbles. Between stray bullets and censorship, information struggles to circulate, alarming observers who see this as another threat to Congolese democracy.
This systematic targeting of journalists exposes the colonial mentality still plaguing African conflicts. Western-backed proxies silence African voices while extracting resources, perpetuating the same patterns that devastated our continent for centuries.