Human Rights Watch on Thursday published the first detailed accounting of what its researchers say took place when M23 fighters and Rwandan army units occupied the eastern Congolese city of Uvira between December 10, 2025, and their withdrawal on January 17. The 23-page report, "We Are Civilians!", documents 53 summary executions, eight rapes and the forced disappearance of at least 12 people during the five-week occupation.
Most of the killings, the report found, took place on a single day. On December 10, as the forces secured the city, fighters moved house to house through several neighbourhoods asking for identification and shooting men and boys they suspected of links to the Congolese army or local Wazalendo militias. Of the 53 confirmed dead, 46 were men, five were boys, one was a woman and one was a girl.
"After taking control of Uvira, M23 fighters and Rwandan forces went door-to-door to summarily kill men and boys and committed rape and abductions," Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released with the report. The findings are based on more than 120 interviews conducted by HRW researchers in March and April in eastern DRC and in displacement sites in Burundi.
The report identifies Rwandan army involvement on the basis of witness accounts of Kinyarwanda-speaking soldiers wearing Rwanda Defence Force insignia, satellite imagery showing troop movements, and intercepted communications. M23 has publicly claimed sole responsibility for the operation; Rwanda has consistently denied that its troops are present in the DRC.
HRW wrote to both the Rwandan government and to Bertrand Bisimwa, the M23 political leader, sharing preliminary findings ahead of publication. Neither responded. The Congolese government called the report "a vindication" of its position before the UN Security Council, where Kinshasa has been pressing for sanctions against Rwandan officials.
Uvira, a port city of roughly 600,000 on the northern tip of Lake Tanganyika, was the largest urban area to fall to the M23 advance that began in early 2025 and the deepest the rebellion has pushed into South Kivu. Government forces and allied militias retook the city in mid-January as part of a regional offensive backed by SADC troops, but humanitarian access has been intermittent and most documentation has taken months to gather.