The International Criminal Court (ICC) has placed a new arrest warrant for the Congolees general, Bosco Ntaganda, on the basis of alleged war crimes, varying from murder, rape and sexual slavery. Ntaganda is already wanted by the Hague based court for using child fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The new warrant is linked to suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity that occurred between September 2002 and September 2003, in the DRC’s Kivu provinces, a mineral-rich area, which has been conflict ridden for decades. The ICC have pursued the arrest of Ntaganda for 6 years with Ntaganda consistently denying any responsibility for war crimes.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Sylvestre Mudacumura, the leader of another militia, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), operating in the provinces of Kiru, saying that he was suspected of more recent war crimes during 2009 and 2010.
The mostly Hutu FDLR were also involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died. The group was also involved in the Congolese conflict from 1998-2003, where over 5 million people are thought to have died.
