Rwanda has given asylum to 682 former M23 fighters, raising questions about Kigali’s relationship with the Eastern DR Congo rebels who waged war against the Kinshasa government in April last year.

Plans have been finalised to give refuge to the former political head of the group, Jean Marie Runiga, and former M23 top commander Baudoin Ngaruye, along with the fighters who fled into Rwanda at the beginning of the year.

The group has been in Rwanda since February after they fled intense fighting between the two factions of M23 — one led by Sultani Makenga and the other by Bishop Runiga. The fighting was reportedly linked to International Criminal Court-wanted Bosco Ntaganda.

About the same time the group entered Rwanda, Gen Ntaganda surrendered himself to the US Embassy in Kigali, where he was handed over to the Hague-based ICC.

Read: Ntaganda’s Hague sojourn sows panic in EA

According to Rwanda’s Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Affairs, Seraphine Mukantabana, Bishop Runiga and Col Ngaruye — who are being kept in a secret location in Kigali — and the hundreds of fighters temporarily sheltered in a camp in Ngoma district, are being assessed.

“It is not a secret. We have former M23 fighters here and they have been seeking asylum as people who are troubled, but specifically as former armed persons. As a country, we were mandated to welcome them as the international laws indicate,” Ms Mukantabana told The EastAfrican.

“We disarmed them, put them in an internment camp, identified each one of them, and where they are in Ngoma. Six hundred and eighty two of them. The next step was to ask them to renounce rebellion and other military and armed activities, which they have already done,” said Ms Mukantabana.

The next step is to assess their applications for asylum, which have been submitted to the national council charged with assessing refugee status.

“We gave them the forms to fill out, some of them are already returning. We are assessing case by case and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is also involved,” said Ms Mukantabana.

Ms Mukantabana would not confirm whether the refugee status was guaranteed, but noted that the assessment would determine the group’s fate.

However, Fred Tuyishime, a former member of M23 and aide de camp of Col Ngaruye, who fled to Uganda, told The EastAfrican that Rwanda could not let the former rebels return to DR Congo due to the friction between the two rebel factions.

READ: DRC peace talks halt as M23 split deepens

“Bishop Runiga and Col Ngaruye and all those fighters in Rwanda will not return to DR Congo,” said the former fighter, who was once a member of Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

Mr Tuyishime said he thought that like Gen Nkunda, the two former top members of M23 will be accorded protection by the Rwandan government.

Still in custody

Mr Nkunda remains in custody in Kigali five years after the Rwandan government arrested him.

No charges have been preferred against him although the Congolese government issued an international arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in 2005.

The Kagame administration has not been clear when it intends to free him. He has been linked with M23, particularly Sultani Makenga’s faction. Last week, the rebel faction denied allegations that he had been sighted at their main base in Rumangabo.

Mr Tuyishime’s allegations corroborate those of other observers who say Kigali would intentionally protect the rebels for its own interests.

Last year Rwanda rebutted accusations by the United Nations that it was abetting conflict in eastern DR Congo. But, another report by the world body, which was leaked early this week, indicates that there were still signs of Kigali backing the rebels, even though the support had waned.

Mr Tuyishime claims Rwanda’s alleged support could have waned because Kigali was presumably more attached to Gen Ntaganda and Bishop Runiga than it is to the current M23 leader Gen Makenga.