A rebel leader accused of orchestrating mass rapes and other atrocities has been caught, Democratic Republic of Congo’s army said.
Masudi Alimasi Kokodiko, leader of the feared Raia Mutomboki militia, was captured on Tuesday in South Kivu’s Shabunda territory after being wounded in a firefight, army spokesman Dieudonne Kasereka said.
Raia Mutomboki was formed in 2005 to fight Rwandan Hutu militias active in eastern Congo and became one of the most powerful of dozens of armed groups active in the mineral-rich area bordering Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
A report by a UN Security Council panel of experts last year said Kokodiko’s forces gang raped at least 17 women in Lubila last September. The panel also accused the group of using child soldiers.
In 2012, a UN-led investigation found Raia Mutomboki and two other militias responsible for the deaths of more than 260 civilians in tit-for-tat ethnic massacres in North Kivu.
Congo’s new president, Felix Tshisekedi, who took office in January, pledged to address the militia violence plaguing the east where millions died in a civil war in 1998-2003.
Christoph Vogel, a researcher who previously advised the United Nations, said Kokodiko’s arrest “coincides with the new government announcing a more deliberate agenda to disarm militia it remains to be seen if it becomes part of broader change”.
Another of Congo’s infamous warlords, Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, went on trial last year accused of rapes and other atrocities. Victim testimony began last month.
