Special Report: The Economics of Extinction in the Kivus, DRC

In the mist-covered hills of Eastern Congo, a systematic machine killing and looting is at work since 2 generations. It is an industry that converts cattle into cash, villages into ash, and human beings into ghosts—all under the watch of a Congo failed state, “civilized NGOs” and UN Operations. And why is MONUSCO  in RDC?

GOMA — The fog of war is a convenient cliché. It suggests confusion, chaos, the accidental collisions of desperate men in dark forests. But stand on the ridge overlooking the legendary cows of old in the Masisi territory, or walk the empty cattle markets of Minembwe, and the fog lifts. What remains is something far more terrifying than chaos: order.

As we give light to this scheme of killings, rapes, tortures, burning people and villages, flesh eating and lootings for the last five years, this scheme of horror began 6 decades ago, just after the departure of Belgians from the Great Lakes Region in the Independences: the Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have not been victims of random “communal violence,” they have been targets of synchronized, logistical operations.

These are operations with a supply chain, a payroll, and a “legal” framework. It involves the looting of $300 million in livestock in the 5 recent years (not counting previous decades of waves of killings, lootings), the burning of villages and their people within shouting distance of UN peacekeepers, and the revival of ritualistic horrors – including cannibalism – that the world thought were buried in past centuries.

From the slaughterhouses of Maniema to the boardrooms of Kinshasa, Tech-Biz.Today has traced the mechanics of this erasure. It is not a story of coltan, diamond or cobalt: the rhetoric of minerals appears, in the light of facts, to be a pretext, to shadow the officially state inflicted sufferings and visible atrocities, on real life and real people in the Kivus mountains, often dismissed by diplomats, politics, NGOs, media around the world.

Most recently, in late 2025, this operation evolved into a total siege, a “starvation blockade” enforced by foreign armies [FARDC, FNDB, Mercenaries] and armed drones.

It is a story with a silent and resounding background: a failed Congo state usually classified among “ungovernable chaotic entities” De Rivero, Le Monde Diplomatique, hundreds mai-mai militia and their common FDLR genocidaire ally, and the silence of the world, including the silence of the national clergy, the national and international “civilized NGOs” from the North, their supporter MONUSCO, maintaining a yearly 1 billion Usd gargantuan and ineffective “stabilisation” operation spanning 26 years.

THE GREAT ASSET STRIPPING

South Kivu & Ituri | The Logistics of Erasure

To understand the siege of the Banyamulenge in the High Plateaus (Hauts-Plateaux) of South Kivu in the recents months and years, as well as in the previous waves in the past decades in Masisi, Ituri and others places where these communities live, you must first ignore the politics and follow the money around blood and ashes.. Specifically, you must follow the cattles.

The Justification: “A Mouse in a Suitcase”. The plunder is driven by a philosophy of exclusion. Former Minister and MP Justin Bitakwira, a sanctioned architect of this rhetoric, summarized this dispossession with a chilling metaphor that has become gospel for the militias in the highlands:

“One cannot call oneself Congolese just because one is in Congo,” Bitakwira declared. “If a mouse enters a president’s suitcase, it does not become president.”

The Testimony: The “Death Boats” of Tanganyika        

The erasure is not just economic; it is physical. Nyamwiza, a Banyamulenge survivor who fled the highlands, described the systematic disposal of men to clear the land for looting. Her testimony, recorded in a 2025 academic inquiry, reveals the efficiency of the “cleaning” operations: “They handcuffed their arms from behind with the belts or shirts they were wearing. Then they unloaded women and made us sit on the side… They would take a group of men and drive the boat away from the lake’s shore and dump them in the waters of Lake Tanganyika.”  Banyamulenge experiencing genocide .

The $400 Million Heist

Between 2019 and 2025, approximately 452,000 head of cattle were stripped from the Banyamulenge community. In the chaotic markets of Misisi and Salamabila, these stolen herds appeared with sudden regularity, totaling a cumulative asset seizure of roughly $300 million to $450 million USD . Banyamulenge experiencing genocide , sosmediasburundi.minembwe.plus-de-265000-vaches-pillees.

Ituri: The Camp at the Edge of Hell

Hundreds of kilometers north, the Hema community faces the same nightmare from CODECO militias group from Lendu community [CODECO, allied with FARDC, FDLR and DRC Government, with many leaders accused with war crimes by the UN]. The horror is defined by the Plaine Savo IDP [Internal Diplaced Person] Camp massacres (2022-2024), where over 60 people – among several hundred thousands killed in recent years – were butchered within sight of a UN base.

The Testimony: Madeleine’s Ordeal

Madeleine, a Hema survivor of the Plaine Savo attack [On feature Image], provides a devastating account of the brutality used to terrorize the population into flight. She was heavily pregnant when CODECO fighters entered her tent:

“The attackers fell upon my children with machetes. In a matter of minutes, all were dead… Turning their merciless attention to me, they hacked at my right arm, my left hand, and my head… I did not have the will to live after they massacred my children.” unhcr.org.no-escape-for-civilians.       

Doctors performed an emergency caesarean section to save her baby, but her family was erased in minutes, less than 2km from peacekeepers who “did not arrive until the attack was over.”

THE MACHINERY OF IMPUNITY

North Kivu & Maniema | The State, The Militia, and The Burning Village

If South Kivu is the crime scene of theft, North Kivu is the laboratory of political impunity. Here, in the volcanic shadow of Goma, the genocide has been legalized.

The Rot from the Head: The “Perfidy” Doctrine

The complicity of the FARDC (Congolese Army) starts at the top. Major General Sylvain Ekenge, the military spokesperson, launched on 27^th December 2025 a diatribe on national television (RTNC) targeting Tutsi women:

“When you marry a Tutsi woman, you must be careful!… This is perfidy.”

The “Wazalendo” Decree & The Rape Camps

Emboldened by such rhetoric, the government passed the Reserve Forces Decree in 2023, rebranding several genocidal militias like the Mai-Mai or FDLR as “Wazalendo” (Patriots). This decree effectively gave legal cover to sexual violence, burning villages, macheting and eating people.

The Testimony: Tied Between Trees 

A recent Amnesty International investigation documents the horror inflicted by these “state-allied” militias. One survivor from Masisi described a gang rape by Wazalendo fighters that illustrates the total impunity:

“She was tied between two trees and six Wazalendo raped her… The Kinyarwanda-speaking men [Nyatura, close associate with FDLR and FARDC] accused her of supporting the M23. They told her that ‘any women who come to the field, we will always rape them.'” (Amnesty International).

The Burning of Nturo

In October 2023, this coalition [Wazalendo, FDLR, FARDC] burned 300 homes in Nturo (Masisi). Reports confirm that troops from the Burundian National Defence Force (FDNB) were deployed nearby but acted as a “blocking force” while FARDC drones watched overhead,  Statement of Rwanda at 58th UN Human Rights Council.

THE HEART OF DARKNESS

The Ideology | Flesh, Blood, and the Digital Hate

The final layer is psychological. The goal is to expel the victims from the human race entirely.

The “Born Criminal” and the “Microbe” . The violence is fueled by a linguistic ecosystem. Justin Bitakwira has stated: “A Tutsi is a born criminal. I wonder if the God who created the Tutsis is the same one who created us.” This echoes the 1998 call by Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi: “They are microbes, which must be eradicated methodically.”

The Return of “Simba” Cannibalism

Wazalendo commanders convince recruits that consuming the heart or liver of a Tutsi “enemy” grants them dawa—invulnerability. During the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (2025), official statements cited “acts of cannibalism against Congolese Tutsi” as becoming “distressingly commonplace.” 

WHY MONUSCO IS STILL IN DRC?

The crisis in Eastern DRC is a precise system. It uses state legislation to deputize killers, military logistics to monetize looted assets, foreign armies to enforce starvation blockades and hatred rethoric to justify the indefensible.

On the view of these 26 years that the MONUC then MONUSCO are in DRC, the insecurity, instability, the number of militias has increased dramatically. Even though it is not the one creating these militias, his inefficiency in protecting the security of the population has widely been recognized, including by the Human Right Council and the Security Council.

“From Ituri over North and South Kivu to Tanganyika, thousands of civilians have already been killed since 2017 in an outbreak of violence. The plateaus of Uvira, Fizi and Mwenga have been ravaged by massive [waves of] destruction in full view of UN peacekeeping forces.”  Society for Threatened Peoples, during the 59th Session of the Human Rights Council of the UN.

The question remains: Why is MONUSCO still in DRC?  Does it have another Mandate than the official one we all know? A mystery yet to decipher.