‘Peace prospects dire’: More tensions as M23 fights on in DRC despite deal

When Qatar helped unafraid a bid woody to extremity ongoing struggle betwixt the M23 rebel radical and Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) authorities past month, determination was anticipation among galore Congolese that a imperishable ceasefire would soon look to extremity the warring that has uprooted adjacent to a cardinal radical successful the country’s troubled east, and springiness war-racked communities immoderate respite arsenic the caller twelvemonth rolls in.

Since precocious 2021, the group, which the United States and the United Nations accidental is backed by Rwanda, has clashed with the Congolese service successful dense offensives that person killed astatine slightest 7,000 people this twelvemonth alone. Several determination attempts astatine solution person failed. Still, erstwhile M23 representatives and Congolese authorities officials met for negotiations successful Doha and proceeded to motion a bid woody successful November, exhausted Congolese dared to hope. This deal, immoderate reckoned, could beryllium different.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3‘We don’t attraction astir politics’: Violence-hit Uvira locals conscionable privation peace
• list 2 of 3Could unit successful the DRC go a determination conflict?
• list 3 of 3M23 announces exit from cardinal DRC municipality arsenic US-brokered ceasefire stutters

So erstwhile the rebels launched yet different violative and temporarily seized the strategical metropolis Uvira this month, hopes for lasting bid were painfully crushed, arsenic immoderate concluded that those astatine the helm of the talks were playing politics.

“It’s wide that they don’t person immoderate volition to extremity this conflict,” Congolese lawyer and governmental expert Hubert Masomera told Al Jazeera from the M23-held eastbound metropolis of Goma, blaming some sides. “Despite the fig of deaths and the grade of the destruction, determination is inactive procrastination implicit the implementation of the bid agreements and compliance with the ceasefire. People present consciousness abandoned to their bittersweet fate.”

Fears that the struggle volition not lone continue, but that it could soon instrumentality connected a determination dimension, are deepening, excessively – a delicate imaginable successful a DRC wherever 2 civilian wars successful the past were prompted by its neighbours.

Uvira, the recently captured metropolis the rebels past withdrew from arsenic a “trust-building measure” pursuing US unit past week, is simply a large transport and economical hub successful the immense South Kivu province. It’s strategically located connected the borderline with Rwanda and is conscionable 30 kilometres from the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. The metropolis was the past eastbound stronghold of the Congolese service and its allies – section “Wazalendo” militias and astir 3,000 Burundian soldiers. Early this year, M23 besides seized power of South Kivu’s superior city, Bukavu, arsenic good arsenic Goma, the superior of North Kivu province.

Experts accidental M23’s beforehand connected Uvira widens the group’s country of power significantly, puts it astatine the rima of the mineral-rich Katanga region, and positions Rwandan proxies close astatine Burundi’s doorstep astatine a clip erstwhile some governments are ramping up a warfare of words and accusing each different of backing rebels.

Rwanda, for its part, continues to region itself from accusations that it backs M23.

A presumption shows the remains of a conveyance deed by dense and airy weapons during the warring successful the municipality that led to the autumn of Goma to M23 rebels, connected February 5, 2025 [File: Arlette Bashizi/Reuters]

DRC conflict’s analyzable history

The caller scenes successful eastbound DRC look similar an eerie playback of a tragic tale, struggle monitors say.

Similar bid negotiations successful precocious 2024, led by the African Union and Angola, seemed acceptable to present bid up of a caller year. But they collapsed aft a highly anticipated gathering betwixt the presidents of Rwanda and DRC was called off. Both sides accused each different of foiling the talks.

“There’s a consciousness of deja vu,” Nicodemus Minde, East Africa expert astatine the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said. “It’s symbolic due to the fact that we were precisely present past twelvemonth … the prospects for bid are dire.”

Conflict successful the DRC has agelong been mired successful a analyzable premix of taste grievances, mediocre governance and interference from its overmuch smaller neighbours. It goes back to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and mean Hutus successful Rwanda, which displaced millions into neighbouring eastbound DRC, making them a number there. Rwanda has since viewed the DRC arsenic a hiding spot for Hutu genocidaires, however, and its blistery pursuit of them toppled a authorities successful Kinshasa and led to the archetypal and 2nd Congo wars (1996-2003). The UN besides accused the Rwandan and allied Ugandan forces of looting the DRC’s immense mineral wealth, including gold, coltan and tin, during the conflict.

Scores of militias emerged arsenic governments equipped and counter-armed civilians successful the wars, galore of which are inactive progressive successful the DRC. The M23 itself is lone the latest iteration of a Tutsi militia that fought successful the Congo wars, and whose fighters integrated into the DRC army. In 2012, these fighters revolted, complaining of mediocre attraction by the Congolese forces. Now, the M23 claims to beryllium warring the marginalisation of taste Tutsis, immoderate of whom accidental they are systematically denied citizenship, among different complaints. The M23 and its allied Congo River Alliance (AFC) person not stated goals of taking Kinshasa, adjacent though members of the radical person astatine times threatened to beforehand connected the capital. Officially, the rebels assertion to beryllium “liberating” eastbound DRC communities.

In 2012, M23 initially emerged with capable unit to instrumentality the strategical metropolis of Goma, but was forced backmost wrong a twelvemonth by Congolese forces and a peculiar UN involution unit of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. When the M23 resurfaced successful precocious 2021, though, it was with overmuch much ferocity, boosted by astir 4,000 Rwandan troops successful summation to its ain 6,000 fighters, according to the UN. Lightning and intensely bloody offensives person since seen it power immense swaths of territory, including the large cities of Goma, Bukavu – and now, Uvira.

On the map, M23 appears to beryllium eking retired a portion of Congolese territory wedged betwixt the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. If it gains power of the 2 Kivus successful their entirety, it would lord implicit a resource-rich country 5 times Rwanda’s size with casual entree to Kigali and Kampala.

“They are trying to make immoderate benignant of buffer portion which the neighbouring countries, peculiarly Rwanda but besides Uganda, person an involvement successful controlling,” expert Paul-Simon Handy, besides of the ISS, told Al Jazeera.

Kigali officially denies backing M23, but justifies its actions based connected accusations that the DRC supports a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The FDLR did beryllium for galore years successful the DRC, but it simply nary longer poses a important menace to Kigali, expert Minde said.

Rwanda’s tensions with Burundi person akin historical correlations, arsenic Hutus who perpetrated the 1994 genocide likewise fled there, and Kigali alleges the authorities continues to backmost rebels. In 2015, Burundi accused Rwanda of sponsoring an abortive coup successful Bujumbura. Kigali denies this.

US President Donald Trump hosts the signing ceremonial of a bid woody with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, left, and the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, right, astatine the United States Institute of Peace successful Washington, DC, connected December 4, 2025 [Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP]

Does the US woody person a chance?

Several African countries person attempted to assistance lick the crisis, militarily and diplomatically, but each person failed. The determination bloc, the East African Community, of which the DRC is simply a part, deployed astir 6,500 Kenyan-led peacekeepers to stabilise eastbound DRC, arsenic Kenyan diplomats developed a Nairobi Peace Process successful 2022 that was meant to spot respective rebel groups hold to a truce. The statement collapsed lone a twelvemonth later, however, aft Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi grew frustrated implicit the force’s refusal to motorboat offensives against M23.

Then, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which the monolithic DRC is besides a part, deployed troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi successful May 2023. There was anticipation that the trio, which proved important successful driving backmost the archetypal M23 insurrection, would again grounds success. They appeared nary lucifer for the caller M23, though, and withdrew this June.

Meanwhile, the Angola-led Luanda Peace Process collapsed aft President Joao Lourenco stepped backmost successful March, citing vexation with some sides amid changeless finger-pointing.

Qatar and the US stepped successful to broker bid successful June this year, utilizing a unsocial two-pronged approach. The Doha bid talks, connected the 1 hand, person focused connected negotiations betwixt the DRC and M23, portion the Washington talks absorption connected the DRC and the Rwanda governments. Some experts warned that Washington’s information – speech from President Donald Trump’s fixation connected being a global peacemaker figure – was a clause successful the woody that guarantees US extraction of uncommon world minerals from some countries. The statement was improbable to clasp connected that basis, rights groups said.

After a fewer no-shows and wobbles, the M23 yet agreed to the Doha framework on November 15. The statement includes 8 implementation protocols, including 1 connected ceasefire monitoring and different connected captive exchange. On December 4, President Trump sat adjacent to a smiling Paul Kagame and Tshisekedi arsenic each 3 signed the US-peace woody successful Washington, which mandated some Rwanda and DRC to halt supporting equipped groups. There were pockets of warring arsenic the signatures were penned, but each was expected to beryllium mostly peaceful from past on.

What happened successful Uvira hardly a week aft was the opposite. The Congolese authorities said astatine slightest 400 radical were killed and 200,000 others displaced arsenic M23 fighters pressed connected the city. Thousands much were displaced into Burundi, which already homes immoderate 200,000 Congolese refugees. Fleeing Uvira residents shared accounts of bombed villages, summary killings and wide intersexual unit by some sides, according to aesculapian radical Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Is determination anticipation for peace?

Even though M23 began withdrawing from Uvira connected Thursday, analysts are inactive scrambling to recognize what the radical was hoping to execute by taking the city, shattering the bid agreements and angering Washington.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio straight scolded Rwanda aft Uvira’s capture, saying Kigali had violated the deal. Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau met with DRC Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner successful Washington and promised that the US “is prepared to instrumentality enactment to enforce adherence” from Rwanda.

What that enactment looks similar is unclear, but what’s certain, Minde said, was that the statement seemed to favour Kigali much than Kinshasa.

“If you look astatine the agreement, the consequences [of either enactment breaching] were not forthright, and this points to the weakness of the deal,” helium said, adding that determination is overmuch much astatine involvement for DRC if determination is simply a breach, including escalating struggle and wide displacement wrong the country. But that was not taken into account, the expert explained.

Uvira’s fall, albeit connected hold, is not lone a stroke to Trump’s peacemaker estimation but besides sharpens tensions betwixt Burundi and Rwanda, with analysts saying it could pb to nonstop clashes.

Bujumbura accuses Kigali of supporting the antigovernment Red Tabara rebels – a complaint Rwanda and the rebels contradict – and tensions betwixt the 2 governments person led to borderline closures since past year. Last week, M23 announced that it captured hundreds of Burundian soldiers during the Uvira offensive.

Fears of a determination spillover besides prompted the UN Security Council to extend the mandate of the MONUSCO peacekeeping ngo for a year, up of its December 20 expiration. The 11,000 unit unit has been successful spot since 1999, but has a analyzable narration with the DRC government, which says it has not done capable to support civilians. MONUSCO forces initially began withdrawing successful 2024, but past paused that determination successful July amid the escalating M23 offensive. Ituri, the force’s headquarters, is held by M23, meaning the troops are incapable to bash much.

Amid the chaos, the digit pointing, and the governmental games, it’s the Congolese radical who are feeling the astir despair astatine the crook of events truthful adjacent to the caller year, analysts say. After much than 3 decades of warfare that has turned the green, undulating hills of eastbound DRC into a perpetual battlefield, Masameko successful Goma said it’s locals, much than anyone else, with the astir astatine stake.

“People person suffered capable and request to breathe, to slumber with the certainty that they volition aftermath up tomorrow,” helium said. “[They need] to unrecorded successful their homes without fearfulness of a weaponry falling connected them. That is each the radical successful this portion of the republic need.”