Raïa Mutomboki or Raiya Mutomboki (

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

; ) are a Mai-Mai militia operating in the

South Kivu South Kivu (''Jimbo la Kivu Kusini'' in Swahili), (french: Sud-Kivu) is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Bukavu. History South Kivu Province was created from Sud-Kivu District in 1989, when the exis ...

region in the eastern

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. The group formed in 2005 to fight against

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the prin ...

groups such as the

Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (french: Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR) is an armed rebel group active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As an ethnic Hutu group opposed to the ethnic Tuts ...

(FDLR) as part of the Kivu conflict.

History

The group was founded by Pastor Jean Musumbu, who had defected from the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) in response to massacres by the FDLR. Raïa Mutomboki is said to use a 'snowballing' recruitment strategy whereby a village is defended or liberated from FDLR or related forces and the males from that village are initiated into the group. The group emerged and reemerged as a reaction to the Congolese Army's relative absence in North and South Kivu. In 2011, the group was reinvigorated when infighting in the Congolese army caused them to withdraw from the fight in eastern provinces. The group's existence is largely a result of the failure of the "policy of disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration" that was part of the

Sun City Agreement {{Campaignbox Conflicts in Congo The Sun City Agreement was an agreement that was signed between some of the warring parties in the Second Congo War on 2 April 2003 at the luxury South African casino resort of Sun City, as a result of the Inter ...

that ended the

Second Congo War The Second Congo War,, group=lower-alpha also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War and sometimes referred to as the African World War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year a ...

. By 2012, Raïa Mutomboki had stood accused by a

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panel of experts of the killing of more than 260 civilians. Paul Ngumbi Wangozi, known as Sisawa, had reportedly been a leader of Raïa Mutomboki up until his death in battle with the Congolese army in September 2014. A year later, his widow Cynthia surrendered along with 71 Raïa Mutomboki members to Congolese army forces. In September 2018, Raïa Mutomboki militiamen allegedly

gang rape Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Re ...

d 17 women in the Lubila region of South Kivu. Child soldiers were said to be involved in the incident. The assault was said to be led by Masudi Alimasi Kokodikoko, leader of a faction of Raïa Mutomboki at this time. In 2018, a second leader of a Raïa Mutomboki faction, Isaac Chirambiza, was arrested by army forces on accusation of systematic rapes. In April 2019, Kokodikoko was arrested by the army for the September 2018 gang rapes. They were accused of voter intimidation in the

2018 Democratic Republic of the Congo general election General elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 30 December 2018, to determine a successor to President Joseph Kabila, as well as for the 500 seats of the National Assembly and the 715 elected seats of the 26 provincial as ...

References

External links

Congolese warlord convicted of war crimes with the help of ABA ROLI
21st century in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2005 establishments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

History

See also

References

External links