Genocide, 'blood minerals' and Africa's great war: How the histories of Rwanda and Congo - 'confused' by Tory minister in THAT Question Time gaffe - are inextricably linked by decades of bloodshed

A Conservative minister appeared to confuse the countries of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo last night on the BBC's Question Time - two countries that the US has recently warned are on the 'brink of war'.

Responding to an audience member's question during the programme about the British government's controversial Rwanda bill, Policing minister Chris Philp seemed to ask whether 'Rwanda is a different country to Congo' - prompting laughter and disbelief from the audience and his fellow panellists.

The Rwanda Bill became law on Thursday after being granted royal assent, paving the way for migrant deportation flights from the UK to get off the ground.

The bill was held up at several stages, including over questions about whether Rwanda is a safe country - with one provision in the bill even stating 'that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country' to allow the scheme to go ahead.

Although Philp was mocked for his gaffe, the two central African nations have been inextricably linked by a recent and bloody history, with the UN and the US sounding the alarm in recent months over the rising risk of war once again.

This was highlighted last night when the Question Time audience member asked if asylum seekers in the UK who had arrived from Congo to escape the brutal conflict - which has displaced millions of people - could be sent to Rwanda.

The two countries neighbour each other, and Rwanda has been accused of supplying violent rebel groups in Congo/DRC with weapons and soldiers

The Rwandan government has denied this.

The audience member asked: 'I come from a neighbouring country called Congo, if you know geographically that it is located right next door to Rwanda.

'And right now in Goma there's a genocide going on and there's such a big conflict going on with people from Rwanda.

'So had my family members come from Goma on a crossing right now would they be sent back to the country that they're supposedly warring, Rwanda?

'Does that make any sense to you?'

A seemingly flustered Mr Philp replied: 'No, I think there's an exclusion on people from Rwanda being sent to Rwanda.'

After the audience member objected that his parents were 'not from Rwanda', the Conservative MP for Croydon South appeared to ask: 'Well, I mean, Rwanda is a different country to Congo isn't it? It's a different country?'

The comment caused a short outburst of laughter from some members of the debate programme's audience. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting's eyes darted around the room, apparently in disbelief at the question.

Mr Philp continued: 'There is a clause in the legislation that says if somebody would suffer, I think the phrase is 'serious and irreversible harm' by being sent somewhere, they wouldn't be sent. So there is that safety mechanism built into the legislation.'

Eastern Congo has long been overrun by more than 120 armed groups seeking to control the region's rich resources as they carry out mass killings.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced in recent months, worsening what is one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. 

About 7 million people are displaced, many beyond the reach of aid. 

The fighting has displaced 738,000 more people in the first three months of this year alone, according to the UN aid agency OCHA. 

Congo has been struggling to push back M23 rebels since they launched a comeback offensive in the already restive east in 2022.

The group is the most dominant in the region.

Attacks by the rebel group forced at least 165,000 people to flee their homes in March alone, most of them pouring into Goma, whose estimated population of two million people is already overstretched with inadequate resources.

Goma - the region's largest city - hosts most of the displaced people but is increasingly threatened by fighting in surrounding villages. 

The Congolese government, UN officials and Western powers including the United States and Belgium have accused Rwanda of providing support for M23 - including weapons and soldiers - which Rwanda has repeatedly denied. 

Rwanda's army has in-turn previously accused Congo of arming and fighting alongside another rebel group, the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The on-going conflict between the two nations was also highlighted last week when Belgium's ambassador to Congo said the country should file a complaint with the International Court of Justice over Rwanda's failure to respect its border.

At a meeting of foreign envoys in the eastern city of Goma, Belgium's ambassador to Congo, Roxane de Bilderling, said more should be done to hold Rwanda to account.

'Another way of exerting pressure is for the Congo to lodge a complaint with the International Court of Justice for failure to respect international borders,' she said, referring to Rwanda.

Asked about de Bilderling's comment, Rwanda government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told Reuters: 'DRC should take Belgium to ICJ.' 

Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief said the world is forgetting the escalating violence in eastern Congo as conflicts continue in places like Ukraine and Gaza. 

The humanitarian crisis must be taken 'very seriously' to avoid further escalation, UN rights chief Volker Türk said after meeting with displaced people last week.

'There are a lot of conflicts in the world, and sometimes I have the impression that the situation here is being forgotten,' Türk said.

The UN official said many of the displaced people are women and children on the move as bombings and gunfire regularly erupt from surrounding mountains.

'It breaks my heart to see people who have been displaced several times in an extremely precarious situation here and who want peace,' Türk said.

He appealed for influential groups and people to 'use that influence to put an end to this situation.' He didn't name names.

United Nations experts have said they have evidence that Rwandan troops have fought alongside the M23 in eastern Congo and supplied the rebels with weapons.

They also said that members of DRC's army have fought alongside the FDLR. 

Today's conflict is part of the long fallout from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The M23 group is ethnic Tutsi-led, while the FDLR is composed of ethnic Hutus. 

But regional tensions date back even further and have their roots in conflict between the different ethnic groups in Central and East Africa, as well as the fight to control minerals - which is particularly the case in the DRC.

The Kingdom of Rwanda was established in the 12th Century and ruled by a Tutsi monarchy. It was one of the oldest and most centralised kingdoms in the region.

It was later annexed by Germany which - in 1897 - colonised Rwanda as part of German East Africa. Belgium later took control in 1916 during World War One.

The Tutsi monarchy was abolished in 1961 after ethnic violence broke out between the Hutu and Tutsi during the Belgian-led Hutu Revolution, and after a 196 referendum, Rwanda became a Hutu-dominated republic.

But in 1973 a military coup overthrew President Grégoire Kayibanda, with Juvénal Habyarimana taking power. He retained the pro-Hutu policy.

The country was again plunged into chaos in 1990 with the outbreak of a civil war, with the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launching an attack.

The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on the night of April 6, 1994 - when his plane was shot down over Kigali - triggered a rampage by Hutu extremists and the 'Interahamwe' militia. 

The 100-day massacre claimed the lives of as many as 800,000 people, largely Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, and became known as the Rwandan genocide.

Victims were shot, beaten or hacked to death in killings fuelled by vicious anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on TV and radio.

At least 250,000 women were raped, according to UN figures.

New mass graves continue to be uncovered.

The genocide ended with a victory for the RPF - led by the country's now-president Paul Kagame - with the government and génocidaires (Rwandans who are guilty of carrying out the genocide) fleeing into Zaire (now the DRC).

The DRC has since been accused of harbouring the perpetrators. 

In 2002, Rwanda set up community tribunals where victims heard 'confessions' from those who had persecuted them, although rights watchdogs said the system also resulted in miscarriages of justice.

Today, Rwandan ID cards do not mention whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi.

Secondary school students learn about the genocide as part of a tightly controlled curriculum.

According to Rwanda, hundreds of genocide suspects remain at large, including in neighbouring nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

Only 28 have been extradited to Rwanda from around the world.

France, one of the top destinations for Rwandans fleeing justice at home, has tried and convicted half a dozen people over their involvement in the killings.

The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of president Kagame, but the scars of the violence remain across Africa's Great Lakes region.

Earlier this month - as the 30th anniversary of the genocide was marked - Kagame said the international community had 'failed' his country during the genocide.

'Rwanda was completely humbled by the magnitude of our loss. And the lessons we learned are engraved in blood,' Kagame said in Kigali.

'It was the international community which failed all of us, whether from contempt or cowardice,' he told an audience that included former US president Bill Clinton, who had called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration. 

In keeping with tradition, the ceremonies on April 7 - the day Hutu militias unleashed the carnage in 1994 - began with Kagame placing wreathes on mass graves and lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried. 

However, the violence in the region was by no means ended when the Rwandan genocide came to an end. 

In the years that followed, the RPF was a key belligerent in the First and Second Congo War - the later becoming known as 'Africa's World War'.

The First Congo war resulted in thousands of deaths, while the Second - which spanned almost five years from 1998 to 2003 - saw hundreds of thousands of people killed and many more die in the aftermath.

In 2008, the International Rescue Committee estimated that the war and its aftermath had caused 5.4 million deaths, although this is contested. If correct, it would make the conflict the second most deadly since the Second World War.

Although the war officially came to an end in 2003, fighting in the region has never really ceased, with the US warning this year that Rwanda and Congo must 'walk back from the brink of war' amid a flare up.

US deputy ambassador Robert Wood delivered the warning in February at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by France as violence has worsened in Congo's mineral-rich east which borders Rwanda. 

Wood said Rwanda and Congo, along with 'regional actors,' should immediately resume diplomatic talks. 'These regional diplomatic efforts, not military conflict, are the only path toward a negotiated solution and sustainable peace,' he stressed.

The US warning follows the Rwandan Foreign Ministry's rejection of US calls for the withdrawal of its troops and surface-to-air missile systems from eastern Congo.

The US State Department also criticised the worsening violence caused by M23, a 'Rwanda-backed' armed group.

The Rwanda ministry's statement said its troops are defending Rwandan territory as Congo carries out a 'dramatic military build-up' near the border.

The ministry spoke of threats to Rwandan national security stemming from the presence in Congo of an armed group whose members include alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.

The rebel group, known by its initials FDLR, 'is fully integrated into' the Congolese army, the statement said. Although Rwanda has long cited a threat posed by FLDR, authorities there had never admitted to a military presence in eastern Congo. 

Wood urged the international community to take immediate steps to end the fighting and de-escalate tensions between Congo and Rwanda.

Millions of people face a grave humanitarian crisis and the scale of displacement, human rights abuses and gender based violence is 'appalling,' he said.

Eastern Congo already had one of the world's worst humanitarian crises , with nearly 6 million people previously displaced because of conflict, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

While Rwanda has seen significant improvements in its economy, healthcare and education systems since the 1994 genocide, Congo remains the second-poorest country in the world when measured by GDP per capita.

That is despite being the second-largest country in Africa, with an approximate area of 2.3 million square kilometres (890,000 sq mi), and being endowed with rich natural resources.

The average annual income is only $449 US dollars.

In addition to ethnic tensions, these resources have also been a source of conflict.

Just on Thursday, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo accused Apple - the US technology company - of using 'illegally exploited' minerals extracted from the country's embattled east in its products.

The DRC's lawyers sent Apple a formal notice seen by AFP news agency, effectively warning the tech giant that it could face legal action.

The country's Paris-based lawyers accused Apple of purchasing minerals smuggled from Congo into Rwanda, where they are laundered and 'integrated into the global supply chain'.

Contacted by AFP, Apple pointed to statements from its 2023 annual corporate report regarding the alleged use of so-called conflict minerals that are crucial for a wide range of high-tech products.

'Based on our due diligence efforts... we found no reasonable basis for concluding that any of the smelters or refiners of 3TG (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) determined to be in our supply chain as of December 31, 2023, directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or an adjoining country,' it said.

Sexual violence, armed attacks and widespread corruption at sites providing minerals to Apple are just some of the claims levelled in the letter.

Macs, iPhones and other Apple products are 'tainted by the blood of the Congolese people', the DRC's lawyers said.

Growing demand for cobalt and copper to power so-called clean energy, including rechargeable batteries, has also led to forced evictions, sexual assault, arson and beatings in eastern DRC, according to a 2023 Amnesty International Report. 

China has also heavily invested in the DRC, with the South China Morning Post describing the country as 'the epicentre of Chinese investments in Africa'.

Meanwhile, with Moscow's growing influence in Africa, reports have suggested that Russia is also attempting to court DRC leaders.