Former Romanian soldiers who were killed in Congo during rebel attacks were paid $5,000 a month and their contracts were concluded for three months. 20 Romanians were in the area where the ambush took place. The mission of the Romanians was to train the Congolese armies to deal with rebel groups in a state suffocated by civil wars.
Hundreds of Romanians would have left there from 2022 onwards, since the situation in the east of the region has worsened.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Thursday evening that two Romanian citizens died and four others were injured following the recent events in Congo. One of the injured is in serious condition.
The ministry hasn’t mention though the circumstances in which they died, but it would be about former Romanian soldiers who were in Congo to train the local armies, they were killed by a group of rebels.
The Government spokesperson said that the Romanian state is not involved in this case except through consular consultation. The MFA recommended avoiding unnecessary travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The M23 rebel movement suffered heavy losses in its attempts to capture the strategic town of Sake, about 30 kilometers from Goma in eastern Congo, news website ChimpReports reported.
According to this source, M23 rebels launched a strong offensive to capture Sake on Wednesday morning. The fighting began around 5:30 a.m., and M23 rebels used artillery and infantry units in the assault.
However, the Congolese army, which is now supported by the Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC) forces, managed to deal with them, and hundreds of rebels were killed and many more were captured by Congolese special forces, according to the cited source.
The Congolese government said that after the failed attempt to seize the city of Sake, M23 with the support of the Rwandan Defense Forces, bombed Goma.
20 Romanians were in the area where this extremely violent attack took place, in an area where it is very difficult to reach. Neither those from the UN missions nor the colleagues of these Romanians could get there earlier than 10 hours. Their rescue was difficult, due to the violent attacks of the rebels.
According to ProTV, there are around 900 Romanians with a contract in the field of protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some are veterans of theaters of operations, others resigned from the Romanian army for a better salary, but there are also fighters without military experience.
For a few thousand euros a month, he must train government forces and protect strategic areas attacked by rebels from the M23 Movement. The Romanian private contractors have been involved in the heaviest fighting in the last year, since they replaced the Wagner troops in the Congo, the cited source also says.
Their commander seems to be the controversial Horațiu Potra, a former fighter in the French Legion, whose name appeared several times in the Romanian press.
In 2009, Evenimentul Zilei wrote that the Rebellion in Chad was set up in Mediaș, Potra’s name appearing in the article.
In 2010, DIICOT announced that it had dismantled a criminal group specialized in drug trafficking that operated according to the principles of a paramilitary structure, following searches made in Sibiu and Mureș counties, during which a farm where cannabis was grown was discovered. The group would have been led by the same Horațiu Potra.
Judicial sources said at the time that the former Foreign Legion officer, with dual Romanian and French citizenship, previously trained the elite guard of the President of the Central African Republic and led the security apparatus of the Emir of Qatar.