ProtectDefenders.eu has received worrying information on the repeated and targeted attacks on journalists and human rights defenders in Bukavu, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
On 15 April 2025, journalist Amisi Musada Émeritu, a collaborator of the online media Deboutrdc.net and cyber-activist, denouncing human rights violations committed by all parties to the conflict, disappeared after leaving his home to go to his place of work. For several days, he had been receiving death threats. The journalist was found weakened and shocked four days later, presenting clear signs of torture. The perpetrators are still to be identified and held accountable.
On the night of 30 April 2025, the home of Mr. Arsène Lumpali, Assistant to the Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Bukavu, was attacked by heavily armed men. Again, the assailants acted with impunity, with the clear aim of intimidating or even silencing this defender, which was recognized for his commitment to the documentation of human rights violations in Bukavu.
These events are part of an alarming trend of increased threats, intimidation and violence against journalists and human rights defenders operating in the provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri, in a context marked by the occupation of several areas by AFC/M23 forces and other armed groups.
All the groups in the conflict, state and non-state actors, have an obligation under international law and international human rights law to guarantee the security and protection of human rights journalists and defenders.
We were informed that many defenders and journalists stranded in Bukavu, Goma and the surrounding territories are in urgent need of relocation to safer places inside or outside the DRC.
ProtectDefenders.eu has also received information that journalists in the DRC operate in a climate of great insecurity, subjected to arrests, assaults, threats, forced disappearances, executions, media outlets suspended, looted, ransacked, and more. Security forces are implicated in numerous abuses and enjoy total impunity. Due to the war in the eastern part of the country, many journalists are forced to flee their place of work and are subjected to attacks and persecution. Between January 2024 and January 2025 in North Kivu, more than 25 community radio stations were looted or forced to shut down, and over 50 attacks on newsrooms and journalists were documented. During the same period, over a third of the attacks against journalists that occurred in the country took place in North Kivu. Two journalists were assassinated within one month in the province, under circumstances that remain unclear. Discouraging the armed forces via the media in wartime is punishable by death.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo ranks 133 out of 180 in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
