originally published in the New York Times, United States
KIGALI, Rwanda — A mayor who was indicted for orchestrating the massacre of more than 2,000 Tutsi seeking refuge in a church during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was captured and arrested this week in eastern Congo after 15 years in hiding, according to Congolese officials.
The fugitive, Grégoire Ndahimana, who is wanted for genocide and complicity in genocide, was arrested in North Kivu Province late Tuesday evening by Congolese armed forces. He had been fighting in eastern Congo with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., a primarily Hutu rebel group of genocide committers and other combatants who are now stirring chaos in Congo’s troubled east.
Congolese officials said the fugitive was caught by surprise. “He was captured while he was coming to look for some food within the local population,” Olivier Hamuli, a spokesperson for the national army, said via telephone.
Both Rwanda and Congo called the capture one of the most significant achievements to date of the joint military operations being undertaken by the two countries against rebels in the area.
“He’s one of the big ones,” said Rwanda’s justice minister, Tharcisse Karugarama. “But others are still out there.”
Mr. Ndahimana is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, as a Category 1 suspect, a rank reserved for the chief planners and executers of the genocide that killed nearly one million ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu.
According to the indictment, Mr. Ndahimana conspired with the parish priest and other officials to exterminate the many Tutsi taking refuge in the church. The siege lasted days and ended when officials razed the church with a bulldozer, killing more than 2,000 Tutsi refugees inside, the indictment says.
For over a decade, Rwanda and Congo have been at odds over the F.D.L.R. Rwanda has accused Congo of supporting the group, which seeks to topple the Rwandan government, and in turn Congo had accused Rwanda of backing a number of militias over the years that have tormented eastern Congo.
Both sides agreed in January to work together to solve the problem of the F.D.L.R., but since then, the new operations have garnered attention, mostly for the suffering they have brought upon Congo’s civilian population.
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