"Most serious humanitarian crisis" The situation in Congo is this bad - an overview

The rebel group M23 captured the city of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of January. What the conflict is about, who is involved and what the humanitarian situation is like on the ground.

The situation in Congo is getting worse by the day. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the run, thousands of people are dead. But what is actually going on and who is involved in this conflict? An overview:

After weeks of fighting, the rebel group M23 captured the megacity of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of January. Large parts of the military were disarmed.

The M23 rebels have been fighting against the Congolese military for years in order to secure access to natural resources in the resource-rich region. The M23 has controlled large parts of North Kivu for around two years. Some of the rarest and most valuable metals in the world are cultivated here in large quantities: Coltan, gold, nickel, cobalt and copper, among others.

The rebels advanced on another provincial capital at the weekend: Bukavu in the neighboring province of South Kivu. The rebels also threatened to march on the capital Kinshasa in the west of the country in order to overthrow the government.

The M23 is the strongest armed group in the eastern Congolese border region and is largely made up of Tutsis, an ethnic group living in the East African states of Rwanda and Burundi as well as in the eastern border region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have been fighting against the Congolese army since 2021, with support from Rwanda and Uganda.

The militia calls itself the "Mouvement du 23-Mars" ("March 23 Movement"). The reason: on March 23, 2009, the government signed a peace treaty that was intended to give the predecessor group "National Congress for the Defense of the People" (CNDP) the status of a political party.

The M23, which emerged from the CNDP, accuses the government of not having adhered to the agreements of the peace treaty and not having integrated the Congolese Tutsis into the army and government.

On the night of February 27, the M23 group announced that they had taken the city of Goma. They did so shortly before the expiry of an ultimatum to soldiers of the Congolese army, who had asked them to lay down their weapons. The government initially denied the capture.

The inhabitants should remain calm and the Congolese army soldiers should hand in their weapons in the central stadium, the rebels demanded in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council had already met on Sunday before the invasion to discuss the escalating situation. "The roads are blocked and the airport can no longer be used for evacuations or humanitarian aid," reported Bintou Keita, head of the UN mission in Congo, to the Security Council.

Congo's Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner spoke of a "declaration of war" by Rwanda against her country. Both the Congolese government in Kinshasa and UN experts accuse Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group with weapons, among other things.

The roots of the conflict in eastern Congo go back to colonial times, when Belgium brought Tutsi from Rwanda to the Congo as laborers. This led to ethnic tensions between Tutsi and Hutu, which culminated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. After the end of the genocide by Tutsi President Paul Kagame, many Hutu fled to eastern Congo, destabilizing the region.

Today, the M23 rebels and Rwanda accuse the Congolese government of wanting to threaten the Tutsi. The M23 sees itself as the protector of the Tutsi population in eastern Congo. However, critics accuse Rwanda of instrumentalizing the M23 to exploit Congolese natural resources.

Despite political stability in the capital Kinshasa under President Tshisekedi, the eastern provinces remain characterized by crises. The Congolese security forces are unable to control the area, which gives room to over 100 rebel groups.

Bodies lie in the streets. Medical professionals are treating hundreds of wounded civilians in overcrowded hospitals, while gunshots and explosions can be heard in the background. Sexualized violence is part of everyday life. These scenes were reported by UN representatives from Goma.

There is no electricity or water, and the internet connection has also been cut. There is also a lack of sanitary facilities and diseases are spreading. Medicines and food are being looted from warehouses. The situation is deteriorating from day to day.

The United Nations calls it one of the "most protracted, complex and serious humanitarian crises in the world". Hospitals are completely overcrowded. The airport has been closed due to the ongoing fighting and roads have been blocked.

According to the UN, thousands of people have been killed in the fighting between Congolese government troops and rebels in the city in recent weeks. The number has risen to 2900 people.

Hundreds of thousands are on the run. Especially many families with children. Many children are separated from their families and left to fend for themselves. The hardship in the host communities and in the temporary refugee camps is great.

There are increasing reports of rape and sexual assaults. A few days ago, it became known that 160 women were raped during a prison break, all of them female inmates of the prison, as reported by Vivian van de Perre, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping mission Monusco stationed in Goma. In the end, the women's wing was set on fire. It is currently unclear how many people were killed.

The bases of the UN peacekeeping force Monusco are also no longer safe. In the days since the offensive on Goma, the buildings have been shelled. Three employees of a Swiss aid organization were also killed.

An ICRC warehouse containing medicines has been looted. The staff and the ambulance were shot at. The Save the Children office in Goma was hit by an explosion on Tuesday, according to the group.

In neighboring Rwanda, which has been supporting the M23 financially and logistically for decades and reinforcing it with soldiers in eastern Congo, those responsible are rubbing their hands in glee.

In December, a United Nations expert report clearly explained how Rwanda, under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, is working with the M23 rebels to mine valuable raw materials such as gold and coltan in eastern Congo. Coltan is mainly in demand in the electronics industry, including for the manufacture of cell phones and laptops.

Last year, the M23 captured the largest coltan mine in the region in Rubaya in eastern Congo, according to the report, which also states that the militia has created its own administration in Rubaya, which controls the mining, trade and transportation of raw materials, among other things. At least 150 tons of coltan were illegally transported from the Congo to Rwanda, where the raw material was mixed with Rwandan coltan.

Rwanda now exports raw materials worth more than one billion dollars per year, former UN expert and political scientist Jason Stearns told the Reuters news agency. That is about twice as much as two years ago. It is not known how much, but a large part of it comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In recent years, both the US government under Joe Biden and the EU have tried to exert pressure on Rwanda through sanctions. Even if critics describe the sanctions as half-hearted, the relationship between the USA and Rwanda has cooled considerably as a result.

Kagame had been waiting for the change of power in Washington to begin his advance on Goma. "The US is preoccupied with itself, Europe is divided and the Middle East is in turmoil," Reuters quotes a Western diplomat as saying. "Kagame has seized the moment," said the diplomat.

It is unlikely that more diplomatic pressure can now be built up to persuade the M23 and Rwanda to withdraw from eastern Congo. Kagame has made friends in European capitals as a partner in the area of migration and security policy.

In Mozambique, the Rwandan government is providing thousands of troops to ensure the security of a gas project in the north of the country. Without any real help from abroad and weakened both domestically and militarily, President Tshisekedi has a poor hand in eastern Congo.

Kigali is determined to secure complete influence over the province of North Kivu and the raw materials there and to suppress any armed resistance, writes the International Crisis Group think tank in a report.

Rwanda itself has not yet confirmed that it is directly involved in the conflict, that it has deployed its own troops and that it supports the M23. However, President Kagame is expressing his interest in development in the neighboring country in a different context.