Failed Gambling Dr. Kong at Romanian mercenaries

It was a humiliating week for nearly 300 Romanian mercenaries who recruited to fight on the side of the army in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Their surrender after the rebel attack on the eastern city of Gom also broke the dreams of those who applied for a job to make big money.

The BBC has seen contracts showing that these engaged soldiers have paid around £ 5,000 (£ 4,000) a month, while regular military recruits receive about $ 100, or sometimes unpaid.

Romanians are contracted to help the military fight the M23 rebels supported in Rwanda, who say they are struggling to protect the minority of Dr. Kong’s minority rights.

When the offensive on Goma began on Sunday night, Romanians were forced to prone to the UN Peace Base.

“The M23 rebels supported the troops and the state -of -the -art military equipment from Rwanda and managed to reach our positions around the city of Gom,” said Constantin Timofti, described as a group coordinator for Romanian Canal on Monday.

“The National Army gave up on the fight and we were forced to withdraw.”

Romania’s Romanian Ministry spokesman Andrei țărne told the BBC that “complex” negotiations followed, in which M23 handed over Romanian fighters – which he described as private employees of the Government of Dr. Congo on the Army training mission – in Rwanda.

Goma sits right on the border with Rwanda – and journalists were filmed by mercenaries as they crossed, surrendering to body searching and other checks.

Before they crossed, the footage of the phone shows the commander of the M23 Willy Ngom who hit one of Romanians in France, telling him to sit on the ground, cross his legs and put his hands over his head.

He asked him about his military training – that was with the French foreign legion, Romanian replied.

“They employed you with a salary of $ 8000 a month, you eat well,” Ngom shoutedpointing to the inequality between this and the salary of the recruitment of the congole.

“We’re fighting for our future. You’re not coming here to adventure,” he warned.

It is not clear where NGOMA received a number of $ 8,000, but the contract is the BBC, which the former Romanian mercenary showed in October that the “strictly confidential fee” for older staff started from $ 5,000 a month during active duties and $ 3000 during the holiday period.

The agreement displays the “vague period” of the service, and the performers were to take a one -month break after every three months of deployment.

I met a former manager in Romania’s capital in Bucharest, where I went to explore the ASOCIATIA RALF, which a group of UN experts say is a Romanian company with “former novels from the French side of Legion”.

There is a pursuit of the pursuit, Romanian who describes himself as a military instructor.

In June, while I was in the crowd, I noticed such payers at checkpoints and deployed around the city, working closely with the army.

In the last three years, others have reported that they have seen them driving congenocone troops in soldier vehicles.

“When they arrived, they all called them Russian,” he told the BBC, Fiston Mamhamba, co -founder of the Cock Congo Desinformation Group.

“I think it was related to the Russian paid group, Wagner with the presence in several African countries.”

In fact, ASOCIATIA RALF can also work across Africa – his contract has determined that he has various “operating locations”, including “Burkina Faso, DR Congo, the ivory coast, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Guinea”.

The UN experts say that two private military companies were brought to the ship to enhance their forces in 2022, shortly after the M23 was overgroup and began to capture the territory in northern Kivu.

The province has been unstable for decades with numerous militia that work there by earning their minerals like Gold and Coltan – used to make batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.

The first company that was reported was Agemir RDC, led by Olivier Bazin, a French-conquered citizen. Experts say that the company has hired Bulgaria, Belarusian, Georgian, Algerian, France and Congolese nationals.

This clothing was in charge of the renovation and increase in Dr. Kong’s military air assets, rehabilitation of airports and ensuring the physical security of aircraft and other strategic locations.

The second contract was signed between the Congo protection, the Congenian companies represented by Thierry Kongolo and Asocytia Ralf.

According to the UN experts, the contract determined that Asocatiia Ralf had expertise and great experience in providing safety management services.

This would provide training and instructions to Congolian troops on the ground using a contingent of 300 instructors, many of which are Romanian.

When I spoke with Mr. Potra in July about the measure of his group’s involvement on the ground and did he deal with fights, he said, “We have to protect himself. If M23 attacks us, he will not simply say, ‘Oh, you are just instructors – go home’. “

Mr. Potra was practical during the mission of Dr. canceled presidential elections there.

He was dramatically arrested in December and has since denied insurance for the pro -Russian, the far right candidate Călin Georgescu. And since October he refused to return the BBC calls.

The former Mecenar, who was in his late forties and spoke with the BBC, provided anonymity, said he resigned because he was dissatisfied with how Asociatia Ralf works.

He said Romanians did much more on the field in the province of Northern Kiva: “Only very few of us are coaches.

“We worked long shifts up to 12 o’clock, keeping key positions outside Gom.”

He claimed that the salary was not worth the risks that military performers had to take over.

“The missions were disorganized, working conditions poor. The Romanians should stop going there because it is dangerous.”

He also claimed that the appropriate checks were not made, and some of the Romanian recruits did not have military training – citing as an example that one of his former colleagues was a firefighter.

Dr. Konga’s government did not respond to the BBC request for comment on whether the background checks were carried out or the inequality of salaries between private contractors and Congole troops.

The Vasila Bade family, one of two Romanians who were killed last February, when the M23 fighters ambushed on the way to Sake, a city near Goma told the BBC that he was a police officer.

The 46-year-old took over Saturday from power and took the role in Dr. Congo for a lucrative salary offer.

The cop struggled to pay the apartment he had just acquired and needed more money.

Many more Romanians were lured with the prospect of a well -paid job.

In October, I met a man in Bucharest, who returned home looking for more recruits to go to Gom. He had a military background and performed a NATO tour in Afghanistan with the Romanian army.

“We are very busy with trying to find 800 people who need to mentally prepare for work and know how to fight,” the Plavnik recruitment told the BBC.

He said he did not work for Asocatiia Ralf, but he refused to say what clothes he was with.

“The recruits will be placed in positions that match the level of their training, earning between $ 400 to $ 550 a day,” he explained.

When asked about the employment process, he emphasized his confidentiality.

“Such jobs have not been published anywhere,” he said, adding that networks like WhatsApp were preferred.

He showed me a WhatsApp group that signed up for more than 300 Romanians, many of which were former military staff.

In June last year, the spokeswoman for the Rwanda Yolanda Makolo, the Government of the Government, threw out the presence of a mercenary in Eastern Dr. Congo, saying that it was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which forbids the use of rented fighters.

In response, the spokesman for the Congolian Government Patrick Muyaya fired what he called a multi -year appeal to Rwanda.

“We have some instructors who come to train our military forces because we know we have this emergency situation,” he told the BBC.

But the Congoon soldier I met in June expressed an outrage over the military strategy.

“The salary is unjust. When it comes to fighting, we are first sent to the front lines,” he told the BBC provided anonymity.

“They [the mercenaries] Come only as spare. “

He confirmed that his salary was set at about $ 100 per month, but is often completely delayed or unpaid.

I was last in touch with him a week ago when he confirmed that he was still stationed in Kubat, near Gom, where the army has a base.

“Things are very bad,” the voice note told me.

Since then, I have not been able to capture him – and the Kaitia base has prevailed with many killed soldiers, including his commander.

Observers say the rapid decline of Goma indicates a broken defense strategy of Dr. Kongga, where overlapping forces and blurred command lines eventually played into the hands of M23.

Richard Moncoryf, director of the International Crisis Group project for the Great Lakes, points out that, like mercenaries, the Congolestian army cooperates with the troops from the southern African developmental community (Sadac), a local militia known as Wazalendo, as well as soldiers from Burunda.

“This creates a situation where it is impossible to plan military offenses in which the command chain and responsibility is blurred,” he told the BBC.

“I think it is important to work on far greater coherence in armed effort in northern Kivu, which probably included a decrease in the number of armed groups or armed actors on the field.”

For the former Mecan, the fate of his former Romanian colleagues did not surprise.

“The bad command leads to failure,” he told the BBC.