Rights group concerned about Burundi’s ‘secret’ mission in DRC

Soldiers disperse a crowd by firing into the air after demonstrators cornered a suspected member of the ruling party's Imbonerakure youth militia in a sewer in the Cibitoke district of Bujumbura, Burundi in May 2015 [Jerome Delay/AP Photo]

The Burundi government has been sending its forces and members of the ruling civilian youth party in a clandestine mission to fight Burundian armed opposition groups in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a rights group said.

In a report released on Wednesday, the Burundi Human Rights Initiative (BHRI) detailed how hundreds of military and Imbonerakure – members of the ruling party’s youth league – were sent since December 2021 to DRC to fight RED-Tabara, a Burundian armed opposition group.