Child soldiers and other victims of convicted Congolese militia leader Bosco Ntaganda should get a total of $30 million compensation, International Criminal Court judges ruled on Monday, in their highest ever reparation order.

Ntaganda was a general in the Congolese army, but in 2012 he left the army and formed the M23 rebel group, which was based in the North-Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The group was involved in constant clashes with government forces over control of the region. Ntaganda faced allegations of ordering mass executions, rapes and the use of child soldiers as a leader of the movement. Some 800,000 people were displaced in the fighting across the country. Ntaganda handed himself over to the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2013, after his M23 group split. He was the first person ever to surrender voluntarily to the ICC.

In July 2019, Trial Chamber VI found Ntaganda guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, committed in Ituri, DRC, in 2002-2003. Ntaganda has appealed the sentencing judgment. On Monday, the =Trial Chamber VI delivered its Order on Reparations to victims of USD $30,000,000 to be made through the Trust Fund for Victims. The Chamber established that, in light of the crimes for which Ntaganda was convicted, eligible victims include: direct and indirect victims of the attacks, of crimes against child soldiers, of rape and sexual slavery, and children born out of rape and sexual slavery. The Chamber awarded collective reparations with individualized components. The modalities of reparations may include “measures of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and satisfaction, which may incorporate, when appropriate, a symbolic, preventative, or transformative value.”

Jean Bosco Lalo, who coordinates civil society groups in Ituri, DRC, responded that, “justice continues to do its work for us but the situation on the ground has grown worse, and one wonders what impact this judgment by the ICC will have on these problems.”

The Trust Fund for victims will have to submit its general draft implementation plan by September 8, 2021, at the latest, and an urgent plan for the priority victims no later than June 8.