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Malawi soldiers part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) military mission for eastern Congo, wait for the ceremony to repatriate the two bodies of South African soldiers killed in the ongoing war between M23 rebels and the Congolese army in Goma, North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo February 20, 2024.
Congolese ceasefire collapsing as peacekeepers’ mandate extended
Fighters from the M23 rebel group in northeastern Congo have been targeting civilians in violation of a July ceasefire agreement, according to the Southern African Development Community, whose peacekeeping mandate there will expire on Dec. 15.
Background: For two years now, M23 forces backed by neighboring Rwanda have been fighting to establish control over mineral rich provinces in the region. The conflict has so far displaced at least 7 million people, and killed unknown thousands.
The SADC forces haven’t been able to push back the M23, but have at least managed to hold on to the key city of Goma, where hundreds of thousands of refugees are sheltering. Leaders from SADC countries are meeting in Zimbabwe on Thursday to discuss extending the mission, but should they fail to agree, M23 will have the upper hand.
UN Peacekeepers in the region are widely scorned by locals for their inability to keep ordinary people safe, while the DRC’s own army is poorly trained and deeply corrupt. Without SADC troops, Goma will likely fall, and Rwanda’s proxies will consolidate their hold on the region.
What does the Trump administration mean for the DRC? President Félix Tshisekedi has expressed excitement about working with Trump to deepen US-DRC relations, amid hopes the US will provide greater resources to help stabilize the country. However, what scant attention Trump gave to Congo on the campaign trail was overwhelmingly negative: Axios found that he cited Congolese migrants as criminals at least 29 times between Sept. 2023 and Oct. 2024, and accused the DRC of emptying prisons to send violent criminals to the US.
A renegade Congolese soldier stands at an outpost in Eastern Congo deserted town of Kanyabayonga December 16, 2004 which is deserted due to clashes in the area. The Democratic Republic of Congo has replaced its army commander in the eastern province of North Kivu, the scene of days of fighting between government reinforcements and rebel units, authorities said.
Humanitarian truce extended in Congo
A humanitarian truce in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between government troops and M23 rebels backed by neighboring Rwanda was extended by 15 days, to Aug. 3, but fighting in the area continues, and the prospect of a wider conflict looms.
The background: Over a hundred rebel groups are fighting for control of mineral-rich regions in the eastern DRC along the Rwandan border. M23, formed by deserters from the DRC army, is the most powerful of the groups – its decision to launch an offensive to capture the provincial capital of Goma in 2022 reignited a decades-long conflict in DRC that has so far displaced more than 3 million people.
Rwanda’s history of ethnic tensions is part of the story. Thirty years ago, Rwanda’s Hutu majority committed a genocide against the Tutsi minority. Rwanda says some of the DRC-backed militias around Goma, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, are composed of Hutu genocidaires who escaped across the border to avoid justice.
The UN, meanwhile, says Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has deployed up to 4,000 troops to fight alongside the M23, against DRC forces.
Risk of regional outbreak. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has threatened war against Rwanda in retaliation for Kagame’s involvement.
A Congolese soldier stands guard as he waits for the ceremony to repatriate the two bodies of South African soldiers killed in the ongoing war between M23 rebels and the Congolese army in Goma, North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo February 20, 2024.
Congo demands world boycott of Rwanda’s mineral exports
The Democratic Republic of Congo has called for a global embargo of mineral exports from Rwanda, which it accuses of backing rebel groups along their shared frontier. Congo says that because Rwanda allegedly uses violent proxies to seize mines in Congo before exporting their products as though they came from Rwanda, all Rwandan ore should be considered “blood minerals.”
Two weeks ago, the M23 rebels, which have strong ties to Rwanda’s ethnic Tutsi elites, seized the mining town of Rubaya, a town in eastern Congo with deposits of the mineral tantalum. Tantalum is used in all sorts of high-tech applications, from the camera in your phone to the semiconductor chips crucial to the AI revolution, but it’s hard to find, and Congo is one of the richest sources in the world. In a letter last month, the Congolese government directly confronted Apple over its alleged use of pilfered tantalum, among other minerals, but the tech giant says an internal review revealed no blood minerals in its supply chains.
The logic of the boycott is simple: If Rwanda cannot profit from its alleged support of armed rebel groups in eastern Congo, it has significantly less incentive to fund the violence there. Nearly 6 million Congolese have already had to flee fighting, with 1.4 million swelling the encircled city of Goma. If the world heeds Congo’s call — and no major economy thus far has assented — it could tackle one of the root causes of this long-running tragedy.FILE PHOTO: Members of Burundi's National Defence Force (FDN), part of the troops of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF), arrive to their deployment as part of a regional military operation targeting rebels, at the airport in Goma, North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo March 5, 2023.
Burundi detains troops who refused to fight in Congo
The Burundian government has been detaining troops for refusing orders to deploy to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where Burundi is trying to stop the advances of a rebel group backed by Rwanda. The focus now is on the key border city of Goma.
The background: The area around Goma is rich in minerals, which armed groups and their backers have vied to control for years. The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group began taking territory two years ago and funneling the spoils back to their patrons. UN peacekeepers have been largely unable to stop violence that has pushed hundreds of thousands of people into dangerous refugee camps.
A Kenyan-led intervention force managed to hold Goma last year, but withdrew in November, opening the way for M23. In December, Burundi intervened, but troops say they are fighting blind, hence the desertions. That leaves a South African-led coalition as Goma’s best bet.
What’s next? The fighting will be brutal, with 2 million residents of Goma in the crossfire. M23 is angling to cut the city off from the rest of the DRC. If they succeed, the rebels – and their Rwandan supporters – will be in a commanding position to extract concessions from Kinshasa.People remove debris at a food market following, what local Russian-installed authorities say, was a Ukrainian military strike in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, January 21, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Donetsk shelled, AfD faces ban, Tshisekedi sworn in, North Korea tests submarine drone
27: At least 27 people were killed and 25 injured in a Ukrainian strike on the Russian-held city of Donetsk on Sunday. The attack came the same weekend as a drone attack on the Russian Ust-Luga gas terminal near St. Petersburg, resulting in a large fire but no injuries. Described as a “special operation” by Kyiv's SBU security service, the strike was aimed at disrupting fuel exports and supplies for Russian troops.
300,000:Germany is debating whether to ban the far-right Alternative for Germany party after its senior members attended a meeting where mass deportations of immigrants were allegedly discussed. While AfD's leadership denied the accusations and claimed they were being targeted with “Stasi-like” tactics, 300,000 protesters took to the streets Saturday to protest the party and its growing influence in German politics.
70: After a disputed election last December, Felix Tshisekedi was sworn in for his second term as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tshisekedi obtained over 70% of the vote, but opposition politicians claimed that many polling stations failed to open or lacked materials, and voter turnout was only 40%. Tshisekedi’s first inauguration in 2019 marked Congo's first democratic transfer of power since achieving independence from Belgium in 1960.
3: North Korea claimed to have tested a “nuclear-capable” underwater drone for the third time in response to US and South Korean naval drills on Friday. South Korean intelligence cast doubt on the claimed capacities of the drone, but with North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric in recent weeks, perhaps discretion is the better part of valor.
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