The hills of South Kivu are silent now not with peace, but with the weight of what was discovered this week.
One week ago, this publication reported on the betrayal of Uvira’s “Zone Tampo” designation and the subsequent return of M23 forces to protect Rwandophone communities from extermination. Today, as forensic teams begin the grim work of counting bodies in the highland villages surrounding the city, the full horror of what transpired during those weeks of “demilitarization” has come into focus.
And in a development that threatens to ignite a international diplomatic firestorm, the captured Blackwater commander now in M23 custody has begun providing detailed testimony,naming names, listing operational budgets, and confirming the presence of Israeli advisors running drone warfare programs from deep inside Congolese territory.
The reckoning in the highlands
When M23 re-entered the villages northwest of Uvira last week, they did not encounter resistance. They encountered evidence.
In Minembwe, in Bijombo, in the scattered hamlets where Banyamulenge herders have lived for generations, the withdrawal of M23 had been treated as an invitation. Wazalendo militias, integrated FARDC
units, and FDLR cadres swept through the area with lists. Houses were marked. Families were separated.
“We found children in the bush,” said one M23 field soldier who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the ongoing operations. “Three, four, five years old. They had been hiding for days. Their parents were found t in the church. In the schools and In the creek.”
The exact death toll remains unverified, but local civil society sources speaking from hiding in Burundi estimate that over 400 civilians were killed in the eight days between the M23 withdrawal and their return. The victims were overwhelmingly Tutsi. The perpetrators were overwhelmingly armed groups allied with Kinshasa.
The Zone Tampo (intended as a space free) from military control became a free-fire zone for ethnic cleansing.
The mercenary’s confession
In a heavily guarded location in Uvira, the captured commander of the Blackwater-linked mercenary operation has begun cooperating with M23 interrogators.
The man, a former US special operations officer whose identity is being withheld pending diplomatic notifications, has provided a 47-page testimony detailing the structure of foreign military involvement in eastern Congo. According to sources familiar with the document:
- Israeli advisors have been embedded with FARDC special forces units since mid-2024, providing technical support for drone operations and intelligence
targeting.
- The drone program, publicly funded as a “peacekeeping support initiative,” has been used almost exclusively for strikes against Tutsi population centers in the highlands.
- Erik Prince’s network maintained a forward operating base in Uvira’s hotel district, coordinating logistics for over 200 mercenary personnel operating under the guise of “security contractors.”
- Communications intercepts provided by the commander suggest that Kinshasa was aware of and approved targeting protocols that deliberately blurred the line between military objectives and civilian infrastructure.
“He wanted us to believe we were fighting terrorists,” the commander reportedly told his interrogators, referring to his
Congolese handlers. “Then I saw the targets. Schools. Clinics. Villages. I asked for the intelligence justification. There was none. They just wanted the people gone.”
The testimony has been shared with regional intelligence services. It has not yet been shared with the United Nations, which M23 officials accuse of willful blindness throughout the crisis.
Rwanda: Defense, not offense
As the evidence mounts, so too does the diplomatic pressure on Kigali.
This week, the African Union called for an emergency summit. The European Parliament debated sanctions. The United States State Department reiterated its demand that Rwanda “cease all support for M23 and withdraw from Congolese territory.”
There is only one problem: there are no Rwandan troops in Uvira.
Satellite imagery analyzed by independent conflict monitors shows no cross-border troop movements. Signal intelligence intercepted by regional partners shows no command-and-control links between Kigali and M23 forward positions. The Rwandan Defence Forces remain on the Rwandan side of the border—watching, waiting, and preparing for the possibility that the FDLR, which has now been fully integrated into the Congolese military command structure, might attempt the cross-border raid it has promised for three decades.
“We are blamed for the fires, but we did not light them,” said a senior Rwandan official speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are blamed for the deaths, but we did not kill. We are blamed for the war, but we did
not want it. We simply said: if you come for our people again, we will not let you finish the job.”
The reference to 1994 is deliberate. For Rwanda, this is not geopolitics. It is memory.
The human cost
In a makeshift shelter on the outskirts of Uvira, a woman named Esperance holds a photograph of her husband. He was a teacher. He spoke four languages. He believed in Congo.
“He stayed because he thought the Zone Tampo meant peace,” she said. “He thought if there were no soldiers, there would be no killing. He forgot that they don’t need soldiers to kill us. They just need permission.”
She does not know where her children are.
She has not eaten in two days. She does not care about sanctions, or diplomacy, or the African Union.
She wants to know why the world watched.
What comes next?
M23 has announced that it will hold Uvira only until internationally verified security guarantees can be established.Guarantees that include the complete withdrawal of FDLR forces from South Kivu, the disarmament of Wazalendo militias targeting Tutsi civilians, and a halt to drone strikes on civilian populations.
The captured mercenary commander will be handed over to a neutral regional mechanism for prosecution, provided such a mechanism can be established. If not, M23 officials say, he will be tried in Congoby the people whose homes he helped bomb.
In Kinshasa, President Tshisekedi has remained silent on the massacres. His military spokesman continues to refer to M23 as “Rwandan proxies” and the Banyamulenge as “infiltrators.”
The language does not change. The killing does not stop. And the world, once again, is choosing which side to believe.
Reporting by Mount Kigali Magazine, with field contributions from Uvira, Bujumbura, and Kigali.