Bogoro attack | |
---|---|
Part of the Ituri conflict | |
Location | Bogoro, DRC |
Coordinates | 1°24′30″N30°16′48″E / 1.4084°N 30.2800°E |
Date | 24 February 2003 |
Deaths | At least 200 |
Perpetrators | FNI, FRPI |
The assault on Bogoro, which occurred on February 24, 2003, was an attack on the village of Bogoro in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Front for Patriotic Resistance of Ituri (FRPI). The attackers allegedly went on an "indiscriminate killing spree", [1] killing at least 200 civilians, imprisoning survivors in a room filled with corpses, and sexually enslaving women and girls. [2] Two rebel leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, have been charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes and crimes against humanity over their alleged role in planning the attack. [3]
Bogoro is a village in Ituri Province, in the north-east of the DRC. Between 1999 and 2003, Ituri was the scene of a violent conflict between the Lendu, Ngiti and Hema ethnic groups. The Hema-dominated Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) seized control of Bunia, the district capital, in August 2002. [3]
Bogoro was a strategically important town on the road between Bunia and the border with Uganda, [4] with a UPC military camp in the middle of the town. [3] [5] The attack aimed to drive the UPC from Bogoro, but it also appeared to be a "reprisal operation against the Hema civilian population". [5] It was part of a plan by Lendu and Ngiti rebels to attack predominantly Hema villages in preparation for an assault on Bunia. [3]
On 24 February 2003, hundreds of FNI and FRPI fighters — including children under the age of fifteen [3] — attacked Bogoro with machetes, spears, arrows, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and firearms. [3] [5] According to the ICC, they circled the village and "converged towards the centre on a killing spree", [3] killing at least 200 civilians, imprisoning survivors in a room filled with corpses, and sexually enslaving women and girls. [2] Some residents of the village were killed by setting their houses on fire, others were hacked to death with machetes. [3] The UN reported that 173 of the victims were under the age of 18. [5]
UPC leader Thomas Lubanga claimed that 400 people were killed and 500 were missing after the attack. [4] "The civilian population was very, very coldly massacred," he said. [6]
The attack succeeded in pushing UPC forces out of Bogoro within a few hours and, ten days later, the Lendu and Ngiti drove the UPC from Bunia. [3]
In March 2004, the DRC government referred the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC). [7] In July 2007, the Court found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that two rebel leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, bore individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Bogoro attack, and issued sealed warrants for their arrest. [2] [8] Both men were charged with six counts of war crimes (willful killing; inhuman treatment or cruel treatment; using children under the age of fifteen years to participate actively in hostilities; sexual slavery; intentionally directing attacks against civilians; and pillaging) and three counts of crimes against humanity (murder, inhumane acts and sexual slavery). [2] [8] They are alleged to have ordered their fighters to "wipe out" the village of Bogoro. [3]
Katanga, who had been held by the Congolese authorities since March 2005, was transferred to the ICC in October 2007. [1] Ngudjolo was arrested by the Congolese authorities on 6 February 2008 and surrendered to the ICC. [9] The two men will be tried jointly; [10] the hearing to confirm the charges against them began on 27 June 2008. [11]
Ituri Province is one of the 21 new provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Ituri, Bas-Uele, Haut-Uele, and Tshopo provinces are the result of the subdividing of the former Orientale province. Ituri was formed from the Ituri district whose town of Bunia was elevated to capital city of the new province.
The Ituri conflict is an ongoing low intensity asymmetrical conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the two groups had fought since as early as 1972, the name 'Ituri conflict' refers to the period of intense violence between 1999 and 2003. Armed conflict continues to the present day.
Bunia is the capital city of Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was part of the Orientale Province until that province's dissolution.
Operation Artemis, formally European Union Force Democratic Republic of the Congo (EUFOR), was a short-term European Union-led UN-authorised military mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Ituri conflict. ARTEMIS is considered the first military operation led by the EU, the first autonomous EU operation, the first rapid response mission of the EU, first operation outside Europe, first operation applying the principle of the framework nation and first example of "relay operation", conducted in cooperation between the EU and the United Nations. The deployment of EUFOR troops quickly decreased the conflict's intensity. It marked the first autonomous EU military mission outside Europe and an important milestone in development of the European Security and Defence Policy.
The Union of Congolese Patriots is a political and militia group in Ituri, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, formed towards the end of the Second Congo War. It was founded by Thomas Lubanga in 2001 and was one of six such groups that sprung up in the mineral-rich Ituri region on the border with Uganda in the Ituri conflict. The UPC supported and was primarily composed of the Hema ethnic group.
Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is a convicted war criminal from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the first person ever convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). He founded and led the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and was a key player in the Ituri conflict (1999–2007). Rebels under his command have been accused of massive human rights violations, including ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape, mutilation, and forcibly conscripting child soldiers.
The International Criminal Court has The International Criminal Court has opened investigations in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Darfur in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Uganda, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Palestine, the Philippines, and Venezuela. Additionally, the Office of the Prosecutor conducted preliminary examinations in situations in Bolivia, Colombia, Guinea, Iraq / the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Georgia, Honduras, South Korea, Ukraine and Venezuela. Preliminary investigations were closed in Gabon; Honduras; registered vessels of Comoros, Greece, and Cambodia; South Korea; and Colombia on events since 1 July 2002.
The Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri is a Bunia-based armed militia and political party primarily active in the south of the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Germain Katanga, also known as Simba, is a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI), an armed group in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On 17 October 2007, the Congolese authorities surrendered him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial on six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, sexual slavery, rape, destruction of property, pillaging, willful killing, and directing crimes against civilians.
Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui is a colonel in the Congolese army and a former senior commander of the National Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI).
People detained by the International Criminal Court (ICC) are held in the ICC's detention centre, which is located within a Dutch prison in Scheveningen, The Hague. The ICC was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. As of June 2018, it has issued public arrest warrants for 42 individuals, six of whom are currently in custody of the court.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1484, adopted unanimously on 30 May 2003, after recalling previous resolutions on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Council authorised Operation Artemis in Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province, amid the deteriorating security situation in the area.
Ekaterina Trendafilova is a Bulgarian lawyer and judge with international and domestic experience. She is currently serving as the first President of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers – a position to which she was appointed in December 2016 for a four-year term and took her office on 12 January 2017.
The International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the Second Congo War and its aftermath, including the Ituri and Kivu conflicts. The war started in 1998 and despite a peace agreement between combatants in 2003, conflict continued in the eastern parts of the country for several years. In April 2004 the government of the DRC formally referred the situation in the Congo to the International Criminal Court, and in June 2004, prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, formally opened an investigation. To date, arrest warrants have been issued for:
During the first and second civil conflicts which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), all sides involved in the war actively recruited or conscripted child soldiers, known locally as Kadogos which is a Swahili term meaning "little ones". In 2011 it was estimated that 30,000 children were still operating with armed groups. The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), released a report in 2013 which stated that between 1 January 2012 and August 2013 up to 1,000 children had been recruited by armed groups, and described the recruitment of child soldiers as "endemic".
The Popular Front for Justice in the Congo is an armed group operating in the south of Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where it has participated in the Ituri conflict. It formed in September 2008 from a splintering of the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) and coalescing of other armed actors, including combatants from the Nationalist and Integrationist Front, who had resisted national disarmament campaigns. The group has expressed opposition to a 2006 attempt to resolve the Ituri conflict, which granted amnesty to former participants in the conflict. In 2011, the group was estimated to have no more than 100 members. Whereas the FRPI was closely linked to the Ngiti ethnolinguistic group, the FPJC incorporated members of more varied ethnic backgrounds.
Cobra Matata is a former leader of the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) and Popular Front for Justice in Congo (FPJC) militias active in the Ituri conflict in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was previously a member of the D.R. Congo armed forces (FARDC), having integrated in 2007 before deserting to reconstitute a rebel group in 2010. In November 2006, Matata had agreed to disarm in exchange for amnesty. In the FARDC, Matata attained the rank of colonel or general. The International Criminal Court classified Matata as Ngiti.
Kpandroma, also spelled Kpandruma or Kwandruma, is a town in the Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located at about 2050 m above sea level, on the Lendu Plateau, 17 km northwest of Lake Albert and 30 km southwest of the frontier with Uganda. Kpandroma is crossed by the RS436 road; it is about 3300 km from Kinshasa by road, 123 from the province's capital Bunia, 70 km from Drodro, and 40 km from Mahagi, the two nearest larger towns in the province.
CODECO is a loose association of various Lendu militia groups operating within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The name is an abbreviation of the group's lesser-known full name, the Cooperative for Development of the Congo, sometimes also styled the Congo Economic Development Cooperative.