Human Rights Watch released a 23-page investigation on 14 May 2026 documenting systematic war crimes by M23 rebels and Rwandan Defence Force soldiers during their occupation of Uvira at grid reference 35M QS 37801 24449 (3.3953°S, 29.1403°E), the second-largest city in South Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The findings describe an occupation characterised not by the fog of front-line combat but by deliberate, organised civilian killings once military control was established.

M23 and Rwandan forces entered Uvira on December 10, 2025, just days after the signing of the United States-brokered Washington Accords, which had been intended to de-escalate the broader conflict in eastern Congo. The occupation lasted 38 days, ending with an abrupt withdrawal on January 17, 2026, under sustained pressure from Washington. During those five weeks, the city of nearly 800,000 people was under the effective control of a force that Human Rights Watch now says committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, many amounting to war crimes.

The report, titled “We Are Civilians!,” is based on more than 120 in-person and remote interviews conducted by HRW researchers during field visits in March and April 2026. It represents the first systematic field investigation into abuses during the Uvira occupation and was compiled after the M23 had withdrawn from the city, allowing researchers to access survivors and witnesses directly.

Human Rights Watch documented the summary execution of 53 civilians by M23 fighters and Rwandan forces, with the majority of the killings occurring on December 10, 2025, the very day the occupation began. As M23 and Rwandan units moved to consolidate control of the city, they simultaneously opened fire on civilians who attempted to flee. One survivor described seeing four members of his family shot as they ran toward Lake Tanganyika. “It was chaos,” he said. “We had small bags that we threw off and we ran. I wasn’t hit so I just ran to the lake. I saw my brother, his wife, and two of his children fall.”

Once the city was secured, the pattern shifted to targeted searches. M23 and Rwandan forces conducted door-to-door operations, accusing men and boys of affiliations with the Wazalendo, pro-government Congolese militias. Those identified, often without apparent basis, were executed on the spot. The killings were concentrated in the opening days of the occupation, when the occupying forces moved fastest and accountability was most absent. Communal graves have since been identified across the city.

The 53 documented executions should be understood as a floor, not a ceiling. HRW has stated explicitly that its research may have only scratched the surface, given the constraints on access during the occupation and the ongoing difficulty of reaching survivors in post-conflict eastern Congo.

Beyond the executions, Human Rights Watch documented eight cases of rape committed by M23 fighters and Rwandan soldiers against women in and around Uvira. Many of the assaults targeted women who had ventured out to access food on farmland outside the city, where they were isolated and without protection. Survivors reported a near-total absence of healthcare services during the occupation, with no access to post-exposure prophylactic treatment to prevent HIV transmission and no adequate care for injuries or infections resulting from sexual violence.

At least 12 people were forcibly disappeared during the occupation. In each documented case, the individuals were taken during M23 search operations and their whereabouts remain unknown as of the date of this report. The HRW field team noted that conflict-related sexual violence by all parties in eastern Congo has escalated significantly in recent months, while support to survivors has dropped. The combination of rising abuse and shrinking humanitarian access has left many victims without any pathway to justice or medical treatment.

The HRW report names Rwandan Defence Force troops as direct participants in the Uvira occupation and the abuses committed during it, not merely as advisors or logistical supporters to the M23. This is consistent with prior UN Group of Experts findings and with the assessment that led the United States to impose targeted sanctions. On March 2, 2026, Washington sanctioned the Rwandan army and its commanders specifically for their role in the capture and occupation of Uvira, adding further official weight to the attribution.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Rwanda’s Defence Minister Juvenal Marizamunda on April 13, 2026, and to M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa on April 14, sharing preliminary findings and requesting meetings. Neither responded. Rwanda’s government and M23 have previously denied all accusations of human rights abuses, with both parties instead accusing the Congolese army and its allied Wazalendo militias of targeting members of the Tutsi minority community. The Wazalendo have themselves faced credible allegations of harassment and abuse in Uvira, including against members of the Banyamulenge Congolese Tutsi community, prior to the M23 takeover.

The mutual accusations underscore the degree to which accountability has been systematically deflected throughout the eastern Congo conflict. Both sets of allegations require independent investigation. The HRW report, which focuses specifically on the occupation of Uvira, does not clear the Wazalendo of their own alleged violations, but the scope of the documented abuses by M23 and Rwandan forces during those 38 days is without parallel in this particular episode.

The timing of the Uvira assault is analytically significant. The M23 and Rwandan forces moved on the city just days after the United States brokered the Washington Accords between Rwanda and Congo in early December 2025, an agreement framed as an off-ramp from the wider conflict. The HRW report notes that the accords may have acted as a catalyst for the sudden M23 withdrawal in January 2026, once the diplomatic temperature from Washington became impossible to ignore. The withdrawal, however, was not a ceasefire in any operational sense. M23 forces pulled back from Uvira but retained positions to the north of the city in the Ruzizi Plain and in the Hauts Plateaux highlands southwest of Uvira.

Late last week, the rebels withdrew from several additional positions in South Kivu province, retreating approximately 30 kilometres northward. This repositioning does not constitute a genuine disengagement from eastern Congo and should be read in the context of ongoing diplomatic pressure rather than any fundamental shift in M23 strategy or capability. The broader conflict, which has displaced hundreds of thousands across North and South Kivu, continues without resolution.

Human Rights Watch called on 14 May 2026 for criminal investigations to be opened, specifically naming the International Criminal Court as an appropriate venue. The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in DR Congo, which has been a State Party to the Rome Statute since 2002. The court has previously investigated and prosecuted DRC-linked cases, including the convictions of Thomas Lubanga and Bosco Ntaganda. Whether it will move on M23-related crimes from the current conflict cycle remains to be seen, but the evidentiary base being assembled by HRW and the UN Commission of Inquiry now provides a documentary foundation that did not previously exist.

HRW also urged the Congolese government to facilitate access for independent human rights monitors to the communal graves identified across Uvira, to instruct military and administrative authorities to preserve evidence, and to protect witnesses. The organisation called on international partners of both Congo and Rwanda to support the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent Commission of Inquiry on North and South Kivu, mandated in 2025 but significantly delayed by UN funding cuts. Rwanda’s military and security assistance from Western partners should, HRW argues, be reviewed to ensure it is not indirectly sustaining the very forces responsible for what the organisation is documenting.