Title	Zaire: Hidden from scrutiny: human rights abuses in eastern Zaire
Publisher	Amnesty International
Publication Date	19 December 1996
Country	Burundi | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Rwanda
Topics	Arbitrary arrest and detention | Armed attacks on camps | Extrajudicial executions | Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment | Human rights and fundamental freedoms | Protection of civilian persons in time of war | Racial / Ethnic persecution
Citation / Document Symbol	AFR 62/029/1996
Reference	Amnesty International is a worldwide voluntary movement that works to prevent some of the gravest violations by governments of people's fundamental human rights. The main focus of its campaigning is to: free all prisoners of conscience people detained an
Cite as	Amnesty International, Zaire: Hidden from scrutiny: human rights abuses in eastern Zaire, 19 December 1996, AFR 62/029/1996, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9b6c.html [accessed 7 June 2023]
Comments	The continuing human rights tragedy unfolding in eastern Zaire has been largely ignored while international attention has focused on the massive return of some 500,000 Rwandese refugees from North-Kivu and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rwandese refugees from Tanzania. However, in South-Kivu, not only have refugees been forced to flee for their lives once again as a result of systematic attacks on refugee camps, but Zairian men, women and children have suffered horrific abuses. As a result, some 40,000 people, both Zairians and refugees from Rwanda and Burundi, fled from South-Kivu to Tanzania towards the end of 1996. Much of South-Kivu is now held by the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. Most of the area under AFDL control is closed to outsiders. Human rights activists and independent observers have been denied access. Amnesty International has also been denied access to the area south of Fizi that remains under the control of the Zairian government. But whatever restrictions are placed on access to information, desperate people will escape and will describe what has happened. Amnesty International delegates in Kigoma, Tanzania, interviewed refugees from South-Kivu, Zaire, in late November and early December 1996. The refugees who fled to Tanzania witnessed terrible events. Some were the result of armed conflict between the AFDL and Zairian troops or Zairian civilian militias. Some, however, were human rights abuses that are outlawed even in times of armed conflict. The refugees reported deliberate and arbitrary killings of unarmed civilians, including the very old and the very young, by both sides. The refugees described indiscriminate killings by the AFDL, who did not hesitate to bombard refugee camps and villages with total disregard for the safety of the civilian population. Amnesty International believes that gross human rights abuses were committed in South-Kivu from September to November 1996 by both Zairian soldiers and Zairian civilian militias and by the AFDL. It fears that similar abuses are still being committed today. Amnesty International appeals to the Zairian government, civilian militias and the AFDL to stop human rights abuses and to allow full access for human rights activists and others investigating allegations of human rights abuses in South-Kivu.'The attack began at about five in the morning. We fled, but the patients who had just been operated on could not move from their beds. When we went back the next day, we found them, killed in their beds by a bullet through the mouth.'
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