{"id":52730,"date":"2025-01-26T14:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T14:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/fdlr-commander-pacifique-ntawunguka-omega-killed\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T07:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T07:12:20","slug":"fdlr-commander-pacifique-ntawunguka-omega-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/fdlr-commander-pacifique-ntawunguka-omega-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"FDLR commander Pacifique Ntawunguka ‘Omega’ killed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reports of the death of Ntawunguka, also known as Omega began circulating on Saturday morning. He is said to have died during clashes between the M23 rebel group and a coalition of forces including the FDLR in Nyiragongo territory.<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Olivier Nduhungirehe also mentioned the death of Ntawunguka while addressing the ongoing cooperation between the Congolese army, FARDC and the FDLR. <\/p>\n

In a post on X, Minister Nduhungirehe pointed out that the collaboration was evidenced by a recent visit by the First Lady of the DRC, Denise Nyakeru Tshisekedi, to a hospital to see FDLR fighters injured in combat with the M23 fighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that we don’t need any more evidence of the support that this Rwandan genocidal force, which has spread its extermination ideology to the whole FARDC military coalition, benefits at the highest level in Kinshasa,\u201d Minister Nduhungirehe stated.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIt is worth noting that this visit happened few hours after the permanent neutralization of “General” Pacifique Ntawunguka, the FDLR top commander known as “Omega”, despite the attempts by the FARDC military coalition to save his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ntawunguka, also known by aliases Mulefu, Nzeri, and Isra\u00ebl, was born in 1964 in Gasebeya Sector, Gaseke Commune, in the former Gisenyi Prefecture, now part of Ngororero District in Rwanda\u2019s Western Province. <\/p>\n

He attended primary school in Gaseke and secondary school at Rwankeli before enrolling at Coll\u00e8ge Christ Roi in Nyanza. Later, he pursued military training at ESM (\u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure Militaire) in Kigali. After ESM, he furthered his education in aviation in Egypt, Greece, and France.<\/p>\n

When the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi began, Omega was leading the 94th Battalion operating in Mutara. He was defeated by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and sustained a leg injury during the fighting before retreating to Kigali. <\/p>\n

Following the defeat of the former Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), Omega fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along with other ex-FAR members.<\/p>\n

Over the years, efforts were made to persuade Ntawunguka to return to Rwanda, but he consistently refused. In 2016, this was highlighted by Gen. (Rtd) James Kabarebe, who recounted his personal efforts to convince Omega to return.<\/p>\n

Gen. Kabarebe stated: \u201cI personally called him and said, \u2018Pacifique, you\u2019re educated, a pilot trained in France. You\u2019re not ignorant. You\u2019ve been in the Congo forests for over 20 years.
\nDon\u2019t you see what you\u2019re doing is futile? You\u2019ll never win this war. Why not reconsider your actions? And we know you didn\u2019t participate in the genocide because you were in France at the time for aviation training. What are you fighting for? Are you afraid of facing justice?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe listened to me and replied, \u2018General, let me tell you one thing. I will return to Rwanda only when there isn\u2019t a single Tutsi left in that country. If there\u2019s nothing else you wanted to tell me, let\u2019s end this conversation here.\u2019 From that moment, I never spoke to Ntawunguka again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Omega<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pacifique Ntawunguka, the leader of the military wing of the FDLR known as FOCA (Les Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi), is dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000080588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-52730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000080588,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/general_ntawunguka_pacifique-64028.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000080588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52730"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=52730"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=52730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}