Karine Buisset was a 54-year-old French national and UNICEF Programme Specialist for Protection Against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). She had been working in Goma since at least early 2025, documenting sexual violence by armed actors in eastern DRC. She had planned to return to France in December 2025. Her mission was extended. At approximately 04:00 on 11 March 2026, two drone strikes hit the Himbi district of Goma. Buisset was asleep in the apartment of Christine Guinot, UNICEF's head of security in the DRC, who was absent. The strike destroyed the apartment. Buisset did not survive. Two other people were also killed: an M23 combatant and a private security agent. The existence of these two victims was confirmed by the DRC government communiqué of 13 March 2026; neither has been identified by name in any source reviewed (DRC Government / Ministry of Justice, 2026). The strike was not claimed. No party has issued an official denial. France's PNAT opened a war crimes investigation on 13 March 2026, framing the incident as a killing “linked to an armed conflict opposing Congolese forces and the M23 movement.” The OCLCH - the Gendarmerie Nationale's war crimes unit - is conducting the investigation.
KEY FINDINGS
Attribution (high confidence): The strike was conducted by FARDC drone operators, consistent with established pre-dawn targeting patterns used in prior M23 leadership strikes.
Target cluster: Himbi houses M23/AFC leadership - Bisimwa, Nangaa, Makenga - who requisitioned properties after seizing Goma in January 2025. The apartment building was inside this cluster.
IHL failure: FARDC almost certainly knew Himbi housed humanitarian personnel. Christine Guinot - UNICEF's head of security - is a figure who would appear in UN security
coordination databases. The absence of feasible precautions under IHL Article 57 is a central legal question.
GPS jamming dimension: RDF GPS jamming systems over Goma, documented by the UN Security Council and sanctioned by OFAC on 2 March 2026, may have degraded drone precision. If FARDC struck during a jamming gap, terminal drift cannot explain the miss, and questions about the intended target become more acute.PSEA motive: Buisset was finalising a report documenting systematic sexual slavery by M23 commanders. Colleagues confirmed this. The UN FFM (September 2025) found M23 had
committed sexual slavery constituting crimes against humanity.
Assassination narrative rejected: Claims that RDF abducted and killed Buisset prior to the drone strike (Veritasinfo) are unsupported and structurally inconsistent with acoustic and forensic evidence.
Methodological caveat: All findings are provisional, pending physical evidence recovery, munitions identification, and OCLCH access to FARDC targeting intelligence. Not all
evidence has surfaced. Conclusions should be read accordingly.
