An insurgency led by M23 rebels in eastern Congo has escalated and reached the city of Goma, worsening a humanitarian crisis in a region that suffered two devastating wars between 1996 and 2003.
A rebel alliance led by the ethnic Tutsi-led militia said it had seized the lakeside city of over two million people, a major hub for displaced people and aid groups lying on the border with Rwanda.
The deep pounding of heavy artillery fire and rapid rat-a-tat of gunshots could be heard in a video of Goma airport, posted in the past several hours on social media and verified by Reuters, that showed unidentified armed men running on airport grounds.
Roughly the size of Western Europe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as its formally known, is home to 100 million people and the UN has expressed concern that the M23 offensive risks spiraling into a broader regional war.
Here’s what to know:
Who are the rebels?
The M23 takes its name from a March 23, 2009, accord signed by the Congolese government and a previous Tutsi-led rebel group, the National Congress for the Defence of the People. The M23 consists of both fighters from that original group as well as defections from the Congolese military and police.
The group did not wait long to accuse the government of Congo of not living up to the peace deal by fully integrating Congolese Tutsis into its army and administration. By 2012, it had taken control of Goma, retreating after more negotiations with the government.
It launched its current rebellion in 2022 and fighting flared up last year, leading to territorial gains for M23. The rebels claimed control of Masisi, about 80 kilometres north of Goma, in early January.
The rebel gains halted the planned withdrawal last month of UN peacekeeping force MONUSCO, which first put boots on the ground in the country in 2000.
In 2023, Congo President Felix Tshisekedi called for the departure of the peacekeepers to be fast-tracked. Their presence had become increasingly unpopular and even sparked deadly protests over a perception among some eastern residents that they have not sufficiently protected civilians from militia violence.
The UN mission, which deploys about 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,750 civilians in Congo, was extended through December of this year.
The M23 has alliances with some political groups, including one led by Corneille Nangaa, a former official of the Congo’s electoral commission including during a criticized 2018 election win for Tshisekedi that was nonetheless heralded by the U.S. State Department in Donald Trump’s first presidential administration. Nangaa himself was sanctioned by the U.S. for embezzling funds meant for the election by Washington.
While it is hard to gauge the extent of the support for Nangaa’s Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), which sees the M23 rebels as their military wing, UN experts said in December that an increasing number of armed factions sided with them.
“Our objective is neither Goma nor Bukavu but Kinshasa (the capital), the source of all the problems,” he told Reuters in an interview. “In Congo, we have a weak state or a non-state. Where all the armed groups have sprung up, it’s because there’s no state. We want to recreate the state.”
Rwanda’s role
Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has been the de facto leader of Rwanda since after the 1994 genocide in that country, in which close to one million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed. While his regime has been accused of human rights abuses domestically and muzzling the opposition in elections that are not free or fair, Western countries have often tolerated the autocrat.
In addition to consolidating power at home, Rwanda under Kagama has a long history of military intervention inside Congo. Rwanda and Uganda invaded in 1996 and 1998, claiming they were defending themselves against local militia groups.
The government of Congo, UN officials and Western powers including the United States have accused Congo’s neighbour Rwanda of fuelling the conflict by deploying thousands of its own troops and heavy weapons on Congolese soil in support of M23.
A report by a UN Group of Experts in 2022 conveyed “solid evidence” that Rwandan troops had been fighting alongside the M23 rebels.
How the rebels earn money
Several UN Security Council members, at an emergency meeting on the spiralling situation on Sunday, echoed the sentiment of Russia’s representative on the body, Vassily Nebenzia.
“We are convinced that the struggle to gain access to strategically important Congolese minerals is one of the reasons for the continuation of the crisis we are witnessing now,” said Nebenzia.
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Congo’s plentiful mineral supplies have long been coveted by Chinese and Western companies as well as by armed groups. The Central African nation contains several minerals in the earth that are part of the supply chains for electric vehicles, smartphones and computers.
The M23 has been in control of the coltan-mining region of Rubaya for over a year. This has allowed them to generate an estimated $800,000 US per month through a production tax, according to the UN.
The group has spread into new territories in recent weeks where there is scope to generate more mining revenue, analysts say. They include Numbi, an eastern mining area rich in gold, tourmaline, and tin, tantalum and tungsten — so-called 3T minerals used in computers and mobile phones.
Technology manufacturers are under scrutiny to ensure that metals used in their products are not sourced from conflict zones like eastern Congo. Apple has denied allegations in the past that it has sourced cobalt and other conflict minerals and in December was reported to have told suppliers to stop acquiring tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold from Congo and Rwanda.
Men, women and children have often toiled in toxic conditions in Congo’s mines, and according to UN experts, the rebels doubled the wages of diggers to convince them to keep working in Rubaya.
M23’s control of transport routes from Rubaya to Rwanda led to Rubaya minerals mixing in with Rwandan production, contaminating a coltan supply chain, the UN Security Council’s Group of Experts said in report published earlier this month.
