Ethnic Hatred in Eastern Congo Is Not “Local Tension” – It Is a National Emergency

The attempted killing of two widows in Makeke lays bare how normalised identity‑based violence has become

On May 12, 2026 in Makeke, near Mangina in Beni Territory, two Congolese widows set out in search of help. They were not looking for trouble. Instead, they were tied, beaten, filmed as a crowd looked on and one of them nearly decapitated. Her name is Mrs. Nyiransabimana Jeanette, a Congolese Hutu woman from Kabindi in the Jomba groupement, Bwisha Chiefdom  Rutshuru Territory. She was with Mrs. Maombi Mbooto Nicole, a Congolese Hunde woman from Bweremana, Mupfunyi-Shanga groupement, Bahunde Chiefdom,  in Masisi Territory. Both are widows of soldiers of the national army (FARDC). Their husbands died serving the Republic. Yet the Republic did not protect their widows. Mrs. Maombi told AFJN that her later husband is Mr. Makila Mambundu Richard. Due to her injury in the throat, Mrs. Nyiransabimana, was unable to tell us the name of her late husband.   

Citizens Treated as Enemies

In July 2025, the two women travelled to Beni to regularise their situation and continue receiving the military widows’ pensions to which they are legally entitled after the deaths of their husbands. According to those close to them, the payments stopped in August 2025. In a city already bursting with people displaced by armed violence, they slid into extreme precarity, living under a makeshift shelter near the Mambangu military camp.

Like many displaced Congolese, they followed the fragile pathways of solidarity that still exist. They were told that Mangina might offer help. From their shelter, they went to Mangina and then on to Makeke. What they found there was not assistance but a public display of cruelty.

The now‑viral video of what happened to them is difficult to watch. Nyiransabimana stands with a deep wound to her neck, her hands tied behind her back, bleeding, pleading for mercy and exhausted. Maombi  is interrogated, then  kicked and knocked to the ground and bleeding. The questioning is not about weapons or crimes or association to any armed group. Asked by one of the youths, a question that becomes a death sentence is this: “What is your ethnicity?” This was not the first time they were asked and answered this question.

When they initially answered: Hutu and Hunde,  the violence escalated. The Hutu woman is singled out. In a chilling sequence, her attackers attempt to behead her. Local accounts suggest that only warning shots fired into the air by nearby police interrupted the killing and almost certainly saved their lives. This was not just “mob violence.” It was an ethnically motivated attempted killing.

Not an Aberration, but a Pattern

To dismiss Makeke as an isolated “incident” is to ignore the deeper pattern. For years to date, North Kivu and Ituri have lived under the shadow of identity‑based violence. Communities have been labelled “foreign,” “rebels,” or “accomplices” purely on the basis of origin or language. Prejudice has been normalised in everyday political, speech sermons, social media posts, in some administrative practices, and in the narratives of certain armed groups.

Hutu communities, in particular, have often been caught in a double bind: collectively labeled as Rwandan Citizens, their identity questioned, despite generations of presence and sacrifice. Yet in law, Hutu and Hunde—like Nande, Hema, Lendu, Tutsi, Tembo, Nyanga and others—are not guests in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are citizens, with the same constitutional rights to life, to circulation, and to residence across the national territory.

The Makeke attack exposes the logic of this reality. What happened to these widows is not an accident. It is what has been happening because ethnic stigma has been  left to grow unchecked.

The Front Line is no Longer at the Front

There is a bitter irony at the heart of this story. The men whose widows were nearly executed died under the flag of the State. They were killed as soldiers. Their wives were almost killed as Hutu and Hunde.

This gap between sacrifice and protection says something uncomfortable about the current order. The Congolese State expects loyalty and service from all its citizens, including those from communities that are frequently targeted and mistrusted. Yet too often it does not offer those same citizens equal protection when they are the victims. The message this sends—willingly or not—is that some lives are defended, while others are negotiable.

In such a context, ethnic hatred in eastern Congo cannot be treated as a marginal “local problem” to be managed with occasional condemnations. It is a direct threat to national cohesion and to the credibility of the State’s claim to represent all Congolese.

“Unity Through Diversity” as Strategy

Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) has chosen to confront these dynamics, not by adding more outrage to the noise, but by investing in the long and patient work of peacebuilding. In August 2024, AFJN launched the “Unity Through Diversity” project in Goma, using music as a deliberate tool for political and social transformation.

This is a strategic choice. In a region where ethnic identity is constantly weaponised—in recruitment speeches, in rumours, in household conversations, in revenge narratives—the project seeks to create other stories, rebuild a broken society and change the narrative. By bringing together artists from different ethnic groups, “Unity Through Diversity” uses songs, performances, and collaborations to say, in public and in local languages, that dignity does not stop at ethnic boundaries, and that discrimination is not inevitable.

Some might be tempted to dismiss such initiatives as “soft” in the face of “hard” violence.  Peacebuilding that changes narratives is not a luxury. It is frontline work. Makeke shows that this project is relevant. If the only loud voices on ethnicity are those of militias and mobs, then the outcome is predictable.

A Serious Response to Makeke is a Must

If Makeke is to be more than one more shocking video in a long list, several things must happen.

First, justice must be visible and credible. The individuals clearly identifiable in the footage, as well as any instigators, must be tracked, arrested, and prosecuted. Impunity for ethnically motivated attacks is an open invitation to repetition. A serious trial—fair, transparent, and public—would send a powerful signal: that trying to kill someone because of their ethnicity is an attack on the Republic itself.

Second, national and local leaders must speak without ambiguity. In moments like this, silence is not neutral; it is read as permission. Authorities at every level should condemn the Makeke attack explicitly as an ethnically motivated attempted killing, not as an unfortunate “clash.” Religious leaders and customary chiefs should use their platforms to reject tribalism, revenge rhetoric, and collective punishment—not in general terms, but referring directly to this case.

Third, citizenship must be reaffirmed in practice. It should be stated clearly and repeatedly that Hutu and Hunde in the DRC are Congolese citizens, not provisional guests whose rights depend on current politics. When the State fails to say this, those who wish to exclude them feel emboldened.

Fourth, protection must prioritise the most exposed. Displaced people, widows of soldiers, and members of communities that are routinely targeted cannot be left to navigate violent spaces alone. They need assistance and security. 

A Test for the Republic

Countries sometimes look back and recognise that certain events were turning points—even if they were not treated that way at the time. The nearly fatal beating and attempted decapitation of two widows in Makeke could become one such moment in Congo’s history.

It can be allowed to fade, replaced by the next atrocity, the next video, the next hashtag. Or it can be treated as a test case: a moment when the Congolese authorities, civil society, churches and communities decide that ethnically motivated violence, wherever it occurs, is a national red line.

“Unity in diversity” is often recited on official occasions. Makeke reminds us that, in today’s Congo, it is more than a motto. It is a survival strategy. Without it, every new displacement, every new armed group, and every new political crisis risks becoming another excuse to turn neighbours into enemies.

The question is not only what was done to Nyiransabimana Jeanette and Maombi Mbooto Nicole. The question is what Congo will do now. Will this ethnically based attempted killing be remembered as one more act in a long tragedy—or as the moment when “never again” on ethnic violence began to acquire real content?