An entire Burundian soldiers compagny equipped with an arsenal of heavy and light weapons was seen on the banks of the Rusizi River, bordering the DRC on transverse road 6 of Kaburantwa hill in Buganda commune, Cibitoke province (north-west of Burundi) this Thursday around 6 p.m. They crossed the Rusizi River heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The communal administrator and police commissioner declined to comment.
According to a source on the ground, these Burundian soldiers were travelling aboard 4 trucks loaded with ammunition and were heading to Rusizi to cross into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The order was quickly given to residents living near the border to empty the zone so as not to see the passage of these Burundian soldiers to Congo, reports a police source.
The same security source informed SOS Médias Burundi that the destination of these Burundian soldiers is the Goma city, capital of North Kivu and the middle and high plateaus of the territory of Uvira in the province of South Kivu, eastern DRC.
This source further specifies that “these soldiers deployed as part of bilateral military cooperation between the two countries have been tasked to combat M23 rebels and several Burundian rebels present in the region.”
However, concerns are being expressed among populations living on the borders who witness the daily repatriation of bodies of Burundian soldiers killed on the battlefield in Congo.
Contacted on this, the communal police commissioner and the administrator of Buganda neither denied nor confirmed this information. They made no comment.
Burundi has two contingents on Congolese soil. They are deployed there in the bilateral framework between Burundi and its large western neighbor as well as within the framework of the regional force of the EAC.
