society groups, they killed at least nine men on 6 August in Marangara, Rutshuru territory, while the village was under their control. In Sud-Kivu province, attacks on civilians by armed groups affiliated to the Banyamulenge community on the one hand, and the Bembe and Fuliro communities on the other, resulted in casualties on both sides, according to the UN. In the western region, an armed group called Mobondo, which arose in the wake of inter-communal violence between the Yaka and Teke peoples, killed at least 100 people between January and October and committed other serious abuses with impunity, according to the UN Joint Human Rights Office. Provincial authorities said that disputes over land management in Tshopo province, central DRC, which broke out between the Mbole and Lengola peoples in February, resulted in over 500 deaths and the displacement of 77,000 people. In July, the body of former minister and opposition MP Chérubin Okende was found in his car in the capital, Kinshasa, a day after his family reported him missing. He was last seen at the constitutional court, where he went to meet a judge about the public declaration of his assets. The authorities’ promise to conduct a prompt, thorough, effective and transparent investigation into his murder yielded no results, and no one was held accountable. INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE’S RIGHTS Nearly 7 million people were estimated to be internally displaced, the highest number in Africa; most displacements were triggered by armed conflict. As in 2022, Ituri and NordKivu provinces were most affected with over 500,000 newly displaced people, according to the UN. In early October, fighting resumed in Nord-Kivu between local armed groups, sponsored by the Congolese authorities on the one hand and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels on the other, leading to the displacement of 145,000 people in the first half of the month alone. 148 SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE Conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence remained prevalent, including in the context of the worsening humanitarian crisis. According to UNICEF, more than 38,000 cases of sexual violence were reported in Nord-Kivu province alone during the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 37% compared with the same period in 2022. Amid precarious conditions in the camps around the city of Goma, which hosted around 600,000 people most of whom were displaced by M23 attacks, women and girls were particularly at risk. Hundreds of them were subjected to sexual violence, including rape and forced prostitution, while searching for food, firewood and other essentials. In May, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said levels of sexual violence in internally displaced people’s camps in and around Goma reached an unprecedented “catastrophic scale”; MSF provided care to 674 victims in the last two weeks of April alone. In September, the government enacted a law criminalizing and punishing genderbased intimidation and stigmatization, and the use of degrading treatment. The law also punishes forced levirate and sororate marriages (where a widow is forced to marry her dead husband’s brother, or a woman is forced to marry her dead sister’s husband, respectively); and gender-based harassment on social media platforms. In the same month, the criminal procedure code was amended to exempt victims of sexual and gender-based violence from the costs of criminal proceedings, which would be borne by the state. If implemented, the amendments promise to strengthen legal protection against various forms of sexual and gender-based violence, and ensure better access to justice for victims. EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS On 30 August in Goma, the army attacked followers of the political and religious group Messianic Judaic Natural Faith Towards the Nations. The attacks were carried out ahead of the group’s planned demonstration against The State of the World’s Human Rights