Two Killed, Five Injured in Clashes Between FARDC and Wazalendo Fighters in Kamituga

Kigali, October 16, 2025 - At least two people were killed and five others injured following two days of fighting between government forces and members of the pro-government Wazalendo coalition in Kamituga, a mining town in South Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

According to local civil society sources, calm returned on the morning of October 11, 2025, after heavy gunfire had rattled the southern part of Kamituga the previous evening.

Jean Pierre Le Mwanda, head of the Kamituga civil society platform, confirmed the casualties, saying:

“Two people died in the fighting - one FARDC soldier and the town’s police chief - while five civilians were injured.”

The clashes reportedly began on the evening of October 9, when a Wazalendo fighter shot and killed a soldier from the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC). The incident sparked protests as residents carried the soldier’s body through the streets, demanding the withdrawal of Wazalendo fighters from the area.

Fighting resumed the following day, spreading toward the southern parts of Kamituga near the offices of the National Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN). Witnesses reported that Wazalendo fighters looted several local shops during the violence.

The Kamituga city administration confirmed the death toll and said the local Security Council, chaired by Mayor Alexandre Bundya Mpila, had met to assess the situation and dispatched teams to affected neighborhoods for “consolation and reassurance tours.”

“The situation has now stabilized, but the city remains under close surveillance,” a municipal official said.

The Wazalendo (“patriots”) groups are a loose coalition of armed militias that pledged to support the Congolese army against the M23 rebellion. However, relations between the FARDC and some Wazalendo factions have grown tense in recent months, with repeated reports of clashes over control of territory, taxation points, and local governance.

Observers say the Kamituga incident underscores the growing fragility of the alliance between the FARDC and local self-defense groups, complicating government efforts to stabilize eastern Congo amid ongoing insurgencies and peace negotiations.