Congo Accuses Rwanda, M23 Rebels of Fresh Attacks in North and South Kivu

KINSHASA – The Democratic Republic of Congo’s army has accused Rwanda and allied M23 rebels of launching coordinated attacks in the country’s volatile east this week, despite a ceasefire initiative proposed by Angola’s president.

In a statement dated Feb. 20, the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) said Rwandan special forces and fighters from the AFC/M23 coalition attacked its positions on Feb. 18 and 19 in several locations across North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

The army said simultaneous assaults targeted its positions in Ihula in Walikale territory and on hills in the Bambo and Bwito areas of Rutshuru territory in North Kivu.

In South Kivu, it accused what it described as RDF/M23 and allied armed groups of attacking villages including Mikenge and Kalonge in the Fizi-Uvira highlands.

The statement said four houses were burned and an 18-year-old civilian was killed in the violence.

“These recurrent incursions demonstrate the will of the Rwandan army and its AFC/M23 auxiliaries to torpedo the ongoing peace process,” army spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Mak Hazukay Mongba said in the statement.

Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing M23 rebels, despite accusations from Kinshasa, United Nations experts and Western governments that Kigali supports the group with troops and military equipment.

Rwanda says its forces act in self-defence against hostile militias operating in eastern Congo, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group founded by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.

The latest accusations come amid renewed diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and deepened instability in the mineral-rich Great Lakes region.

Angolan President João Lourenço, acting as a regional mediator, recently proposed a ceasefire aimed at reviving stalled peace talks between Kinshasa and M23. Congo’s army reiterated in Thursday’s statement that it remained committed to observing the ceasefire “to facilitate the return of peace in eastern DRC and in the Great Lakes sub-region in general.”

M23, a Tutsi-led rebel group that resurfaced in late 2021 after nearly a decade of dormancy, has seized swathes of territory in North Kivu, including strategic areas near the border with Rwanda and Uganda.

The fighting has exacerbated a long-running humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo, where more than 6 million people are displaced nationwide, according to U.N. agencies.

Diplomatic tensions between Kinshasa and Kigali have escalated over the past two years, with Congo accusing Rwanda of seeking to exploit its vast mineral wealth, particularly coltan, gold and other critical minerals used in global supply chains. Rwanda denies those claims.

There was no immediate response from Kigali or M23 to Thursday’s statement.

The conflict in eastern Congo remains one of Africa’s longest-running crises, involving dozens of armed groups competing for control of land and resources in a region bordering Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.