Under the pretext of rooting out a religious cult within the region Congolese Government troops looted and massacred civilians in the commune of Nganza in the Kasai Region. Mass graves reportedly are scattered throughout the fields the and streets of the community barely visible and with soldiers guarding the sites to prevent further investigation as to who are in the graves (New York Times 2017).

In Ngaza, locals said government soldiers went door-to-door in March looting and indiscriminately killing civilians perceived as sympathetic to the insurgency.“

If we didn't give them money they would kill us,” said Rosalie Monuque Kajinga, 45.

“They took everything we had: pigs and goats, clothes, food, even chairs.”

On two visits to Nganza, IRIN was shown five mass graves laid out by the side of a wide dirt-road next to a large communal playing field. A reliable local source who asked not to be named said they had counted as many as 17 similar graves in the neighbourhood.

In one house shown to IRIN, locals said 500 corpses had been temporarily dumped by soldiers after the March attack. Bloodstains could be seen on one of the walls and the floor was strewn with clothes, including trademark red headbands.

“The blood was everywhere,” said the home’s owner, Luabu Marie. “Now I have left and have no place to live.”

-Kleinfield 2017

Nganza image 1
These skulls are believed to be from victims of the fighting between soldiers and the Kamwina Nsapu, a rebel militia.

Credit: AaronRoss/Reuters

Ngyaza image 2:

Congolese women walked by a mass grave, in the background. The United Nations has so far identified 80 mass graves in the Kasai region since violence erupted last year. The government has denied having a hand in the massacres.

Credit-Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura/The New York Times

Kids play on the mass graves in Nganza.​

Analysis:

The placement and construction patterns of the graves confirm the oral testimonies from local witnesses and victims of the massacre: The perpetrators seem to have committed under the principle of exerting as much trauma and pain onto the Kisheshe villagers as possible, with little thought given to burial rites or even hiding the bodies in an effective. This is corroborated by the methods used to dispose of the dead bodies: As opposed to utilizing dump pits, local mines or heavy machinery to quickly dispose of large numbers of bodies, M23 coerced community members into digging haphazard holes in their stead, reinforcing the notion of maximizing trauma and brutality at the expense of efficiency.

Simultaneously, the locations of graves at the center of the community and the public methods used to bury their victims indicate that concealment of bodies from external scrutiny was not a concern of the perpetrators. Instead, the facts suggest that they intended to make a show of their acts, make their crimes visible for the world to see. The extensive use of torture, rape and other means of humiliation and mutilation further corroborate this.

There is significant similarity to past massacres, specifically the Rwandan genocide, which we may locate here: The suffering of the victims as an end in itself, rather than being a mere means to a political, military or other end, was a critical signature of the Hutu regime’s systematic extermination of the Tutsi peoples. Known in Rwanda as a “bad death” (bapfuye nabi), inflicting violence was used during the Rwandan genocide to corrupt social processes of burial and commemoration by forcing family or community members to bury their loved ones, thus symbolically participating in the violence and mutilating the community. This ‘second violence’ is mirrored in the Kisheshe tragedies. Brutality vis-à-vis the village members was so extensive, inefficient and ‘theatrical’, it is logical to infer that it was seen as an end, rather than a political means.

Furthermore, similar to those past massacres in the region, the Kisheshe events seem to lack any discernible coherent approach to the killings. Some regimes employ a systematic, industrialized strategy to exterminate their enemy, such as the Nazis in Eastern Europe during World War 2. Instead, the grave locations and construction seem to have been chosen spontaneously, likely based on the convenience of transporting the bodies. The events rather follow the logic of an 'orgy of killing', where murders were conducted at various places, such as the church, the local schools, as well as individual housings.

The massacre and mass burial of civilians in Nganza by government troops bear a similar methodology to that of M23. Soldier-constructed graves vary from small, hand tool constructed graves, scattered around communities close to where victims were killed violence occurred, to larger ones in more open areas. Testimonies, similarly, allege how grave were constructed after other crimes, such as looting and indiscriminate killing, had been committed. These instances showcase that construction graves and persecution of crimes are more reflective of greater shared circumstances of conflicts waged in the Congo rather than particular factions. The remnants of these atrocities tell a similar story: a largely light infantry attack against a largely unarmed opposing force throughout the village they occupy, undertaken with high prejudice.​

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