Security forces accused of enforced disappearances

Congolese security forces have been responsible for numerous enforced disappearances in and around Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, since March 2025, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch has documented that 17 people have been forcibly disappeared or reported missing in the past year and has received credible accounts of several additional cases. Many of those disappeared were found, often months later, in the custody of the National Cyber Defence Council (Conseil national de cyberdéfense, CNC), which has arbitrarily arrested and detained people alongside the Congolese National Police and the President’s Republican Guard. ‘For the past year, Congolese security forces have secretly arrested and detained people on spurious grounds in the heart of the capital,’ said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. ‘In most cases, the arrests seem to be politically motivated or of people suspected of supporting the armed group that has taken over parts of eastern Congo.’ Between July 2025 and March 2026, Human Rights Watch interviewed over 34 people, including nine former detainees of the CNC and 11 detainees’ relatives. The CNC was created in 2023 by presidential ordinance to investigate cybercrimes. International media have reported that it has acquired advanced technology allowing targeted eavesdropping, especially on messaging apps. It has expanded into arrests, interrogations, and secret detention without judicial oversight. Former detainees said that uniformed Republican Guards and national police as well as officials in civilian clothes carried out the arrests, some in the middle of the night. Several said they were blindfolded when transported to, or between, CNC detention centres. They said that they were not shown an arrest warrant and were refused access to lawyers.

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