ABSTRACT
Various informal mechanisms have been developed and applied in response to the human tragedy that has taken place in the North Kivu province. This chapter examines the limitations as well as the opportunities of these mechanisms with specific reference to the massacres that took place in 2004 in Nyabyondo. Apart from the massacre described in Chapter 13 of the volume, thousands of other civilians were brutally massacred, women and girls raped and the local infrastructure, including schools, was decimated. While the bodies of most of the victims were dropped into the Loashi and Mbizi rivers, thousands of survivors managed to fee to neighbouring regions such as Pinda, Loashi, Central Masisi and so on. These atrocities occurred during the armed conflict between the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (the Congolese National Army Forces, FARDC) and rebel movements backed by Rwanda. The causes of the conflict appear to have been economic and ethnic. All sides sought to control the region's mineral resources and victims seemed to have been targeted mostly along ethnic lines—the victims generally belonged to the Hunde and Nande ethnic groups.
