Democratic Republic of Congo's key armed groups

Global Post 

While the M23 rebellion has monopolised the headlines on eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for over a year, a myriad of other armed groups also operate in the region.

They fight against the government or against other armed groups, in a series of often shifting alliances, and prey on the civilian population.

Here is a selection of some key forces:

M23: Army mutineers, for the most part Congolese Tutsi who speak the Rwandan language Kinyarwanda. Former rebels, they were integrated into the DRC army in 2009 but mutinied in April 2012, complaining that the peace deal had not been fully implemented. Kinshasa and the UN accuse the group of being backed by Rwanda and to a lesser extent by Uganda -- a charge denied by both Kigali and Kampala. M23 briefly seized and occupied Goma in November 2012 and recently resumed fighting against the Congolese army. The group's members have been fighting in the ranks of one force or another since the early 1990s. Estimating their number is difficult since an internal split resulted in many deaths and a wave of defections.

ALLIED DEMOCRATIC FORCES (ADF): Beginning as a group of Ugandan rebels opposed to the regime of President Yoweri Museveni, it has since also developed an Islamist agenda. Based in the Rwenzori mountains that straddle the Uganda/DR Congo border. Estimates as to their number vary from "several hundred to 1,300."

DEMOCRATIC FORCES FOR THE LIBERATION OF RWANDA (FDLR): Rwandan Hutu rebels

Mass slaughter of civilians, children in DR Congo: UN

NewVision

Armed groups in DR Congo's war-torn east province slaughtered more than 200 people including scores of children between April and September, hacking some to death and burning others alive, the UN said Wednesday.

"At least 264 civilians, including 83 children, were arbitrarily executed by armed groups in more than 75 attacks on villages between April and September this year," the office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights said as it published a report into abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo's resource-rich east.

Investigators focusing on the southern town of Masisi in North Kivu province uncovered evidence of victims being hacked to death with machetes.

Others were burnt alive in their homes, investigators found, blaming the majority of the killings on two armed groups, Raia Mutomboki and their allies the Mayi Mayi.

Raia Mutomboki is a homeland defence militia whose agenda is to ethnically cleanse the region, forcing all Kinyarwanda speakers out of DR Congo. But it has also seized the villagers it purports to be protecting, using them as porters.

Fighters from an ethnic Hutu militia called Nyatura were also responsible for killings and other human rights abuses, the UN said, along with the Rwandan Hutu group the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which Kigali suspects includes fighters who took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.

Following publication of the report -- the result of six missions and more than 160 interviews with victims and witnesses -- UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned the killings as "the most serious (human rights violations) we have seen in recent times in the DRC."