International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) published a new report about violence and displacement in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It describes how attacks by a militia were followed by abusive military operations and mass killings by a pro-government militia, causing the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands. IRRI spoke…
Thousands of victims across the world continue to see the ICC as a beacon of hope and an avenue to obtain justice for egregious crimes perpetrated against them. Up to September 2017, over 12, 985 victims were participating in proceedings before the Court. Between August 2016 and August 2017 alone, the Court received over 4,725…
Burundian asylum seekers and refugees, International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) said today. According to MONUSCO, on 15 September, Congolese government security forces killed at least 36 and injured over 100 Burundians in Kamanyola (South Kivu province), during demonstrations by Burundians against threatened expulsions. “The Congolese authorities must ensure that their investigation, into what appears to…
The first six months of this year has continued at a pace for IRRI. Not only have the areas we work in continue to be challenging but we have worked hard to ensure the voices of the displaced and conflict affected communities are not only heard but heeded at the international level. In addition, our…
The United Nations Human Rights Council should urgently establish a commission of inquiry into the situation in the central Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a coalition of 262 Congolese and 9 international nongovernmental organizations said today. The 35th session of the Human Rights Council begins June 6, 2017, in Geneva. Between…
The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) publishes an annual report on progress made in three focus areas: identifying the violations that cause displacement and exile; protecting the rights of those who are displaced, and ensuring the solutions to their displacement are durable, rights respecting, safe and timely. The 2016 report summarizes our work and looks…
The political impasse in the Democratic Republic of Congo is at serious risk of spiraling into widespread violence over the coming months, with serious consequences for the people in Congo and broader ramifications across the region. Since January 2015, the Congolese government has imposed a brutal crackdown against those who have spoken out against or…
On 2 June 2016, the Congolese organisation Filimbi asked Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to investigate the ongoing situation near Beni, in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the words of a representative of the organisation, “A case like that of the massacres of…
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is still without an electoral calendar, despite the fact that presidential elections are supposed to be held this year. As a result, the political climate is tense, compounded by the uncertainty of who will stand given that the Congolese constitution forbids President Kabila, in power since 2001, from competing….
The following blog was originally posted on the International Justice Monitor website. (2 September 2015) Today, September 2, the trial of Bosco Ntaganda began at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. This will be an important trial for the court in many ways and will be followed with particular interest both in the…
The following blog was originally posted on the International Justice Monitor website. (2 September 2015) Today, September 2, the trial of Bosco Ntaganda began at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. This will be an important trial for the court in many ways and will be followed with particular interest both in the…
Five years after the death of Congolese human rights activist, Floribert Chebeya and the disappearance of his colleague Fidèle Bazana shook the Congolese human rights community, the fight for justice continues. Although eight people have been found in connection with the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), activists argue that the truth is…
The following blog was originally posted on the International Justice Monitor website. (24 August, 2015) On August 21, 2015, the International Criminal Court (ICC) heard arguments about whether or not to release Thomas Lubanga, the first person to be convicted by the court. As required under Article 110 of the Rome Statute, the ICC will…
“My heart is crying that during the prime of life when I and my family should be enjoying life; eating well, dressing well, living well… this is the time we are refugees, wasting our lives and it hurts so much. No job, no money, difficult life …seven years…” – Congolese refugee in Kampala.[1] Despite the…
The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) was concerned to learn of the arrest, on the 21 January 2014, of Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba by part of the presidential guard while with fellow activists in an outdoor bar in Kinshasa. Mr. Ngoyi, a well-known and well respected human rights defender and the president of the NGO Synergie…
(This blog first appeared on the International Justice Monitor, a project of the Open Society Justice Initiative.) On June 27, a Dutch court refused the appeal of three former the International Criminal Court (ICC) witnesses, Floribert Ndjabu Ngabu, Sharif Manda Ndadza Dz’Na, and Pierre-Célestin Mbodina Iribi, for asylum in the Netherlands. The witnesses, who were previously in…
The verdict in the case against Germain Katanga, the alleged commander of the Forces de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI), for war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to an attack on the village of Bogoro in Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is being awaited with impatience in Ituri. Having followed trials at the…
This blog was first posted by the Open Society Justice Initiative. In the early morning hours of November 24, police in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arrested Fidèle Babala Wandu, a member of the DRC Parliament and Deputy Secretary General of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) (the party of Jean-Pierre Bemba)…
As the General Assembly came together last week to engage in an informal dialogue on the latest report of the UN Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect: State Responsibility and Prevention, the ongoing commission of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes (known collectively as “atrocity crimes”) in Syria, Sudan and the Democratic…
Infrastructural development projects disrupt the lives of thousands of people every year without much attention paid to the human cost. In fact, it is widely believed that up to 80 million people have been displaced by the construction of large dams worldwide. Yet a lot more attention is paid to conflict-induced displacement (albeit with varying…
