[FRANCE24] Bosco Ntaganda, the Rwandan-born Tutsi rebel sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and an alleged leader of the M23 revolt in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, walked into the U.S. embassy in Rwanda on Monday and handed himself over, the U.S. government said.A State Department spokeswoman said he asked to be taken to the ICC in The Hague. It was an unexpected move by an elusive insurgent chief whose name was widely feared in the Great Lakes borderlands region that has long been a tinderbox of brutal ethnic and political conflict fuelled by mineral riches.
Ntaganda, wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity - including recruiting child soldiers, murder, rape and sexual slavery - had suffered a humiliating reversal of fortunes in the last few weeks as infighting tore apart the M23 rebellion he had helped to launch in April last year.
Pursued by a more powerful rival M23 commander, Sultani Makenga, Ntaganda and hundreds of his fellow fighters fled in recent days to neighbouring Rwanda, in a split that could open the way for Makenga and his group to sign a peace deal with the government of President Joseph Kabila..