On 4 December 2025 in Washington, President Felix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame signed a peace deal in front of American officials. The room was full of cameras and promises. From that day to now, the ground in eastern Congo has given little back. Fighting has gone on. People have kept dying. The paper has not become peace.
Rwandan families still lose their people without a clear story. They are told the country is only defending itself. They are also told later that a son or a husband is gone. Between those two messages sits a silence that many no longer accept.
Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police David Rukika spent most of his service in the classrooms. He taught military science in police training schools. For years he worked with recruits at the Police Training School in Gishari, Rwamagana and Musanze, shaping the men and women who entered the force. In 2022 he led Rwandan police officers during the East African Community field training exercise. He left the service with honour on 10 November 2024.
After retirement, according to people close to the family who spoke to Rwanda Freedom of Speech, he was sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo. His task there, they say, was to train the AFC/M23 police. That is not the work of a man sitting at home. It is the work of a trainer moved across the border after his uniform had already been put away.
Those same relatives say they spoke with him the day before they were told he was dead. The next word was that he had been killed in Rumangabo camp by M23 colleagues after an argument. Official notices in Kigali have spoken instead of a sudden death at his house on 31 August 2026, with the body taken to Kacyiru. The family says the shock was total. They had heard his voice. Then they were asked to bury him.
Rumangabo has a long and hard name. It has been a camp, a base and a place people mention when they talk about fear and graves. When a Rwandan retired police teacher who trained others ends up dead in that camp, the official line and the family line do not meet.
Rwanda Freedom of Speech is asking the government to stop covering these deaths with thin stories. It is asking to stop sending unemployed Rwandans into Congo under the language of defence, and to stop using trainers like Rukika after retirement as if the war were a second career. Nothing hurts like being told never to tell the truth about what ended the life of your relatives.