West News Wire: An explosive device accidentally went off in a field in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing at least nine people and injuring 16, local sources said the AFP news agency on Thursday.
The explosion happened on Wednesday night in Lubwe Sud, which is part of the Rutshuru region of North Kivu province.
Local civil society leader Justin Mwangaza claimed that a citizen had picked up a bomb in a field and passed it to a militiaman before it exploded. According to him, 16 people were hurt, and 9 individuals died.
The number was confirmed by a nurse at a neighbouring facility, who added that two victims passed away immediately and seven more later died from their injuries. According to the nurse, some of the 16 injured patients are in critical condition.
Armed groups have plagued much of eastern DRC for decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s. According to a count by the United Nations, there are as many as 120 groups in the region.
One such organisation, the M23, has seized large areas of land in North Kivu since resuming hostilities in late 2021 after years of inactivity.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the rebel campaign has caused the displacement of more than one million people.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) went on to accuse the organisation of recent murder, rape, and “other war crimes” in a report from June 2023.
Despite denials from Kigali, independent UN experts, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and several Western countries like the United States and France accuse Rwanda of actively supporting the M23.
