UN experts: Between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan troops are in Congo operating with the M23 rebel group
UNITED NATIONS — Between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan government troops are stationed in neighboring eastern Congo, according to UN experts, operating alongside the M23 rebel group, which is making significant advances, they said in a report released Wednesday.
The experts called the Rwandan troops’ estimate “conservative” and said their “systematic support and presence” in support of M23 in its territorial conquest is a criminal act and that their deployment violates Congo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Rwandan Armed Forces’ “de facto control and direction over M23 operations also makes Rwanda accountable for M23’s actions,” the panel of experts said in the 293-page report to the UN Security Council.
Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence while more than 120 groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources, while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings.
Congo’s President Felix TshisekediRwanda, along with US and UN experts, have accused it of providing military support to M23. Rwanda denies the claim, but in February it effectively admitted it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to ensure its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border.
The root cause of the current crisis is the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The massacre began when a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down, killing the leader, who like most Rwandans was an ethnic Hutu. The country’s Tutsi minority was blamed, and gangs of Hutu extremists began killing them with the support of the Rwandan army, police, and militias.
Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame, a Tutsi and former opposition commander, is widely credited with stopping the genocide that killed more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them. Thousands of Hutus fled Rwanda to neighboring eastern Congo.
The M23 rebels are largely Tutsis of Congolese descent. They rose to prominence in November 2012 when their fighters captured Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo on the border with Rwanda.
Rwandan Ambassador Ernest Rwamucyo told the Security Council on Monday that Congo and the international community have failed to ensure the protection of Congolese civilians, particularly Congolese Tutsis, who he said are “being ethnically cleansed by armed groups.”
He reiterated that the FDLR rebel group – which he said is backed by Congo’s highest authorities and has vowed to bring about regime change in Rwanda – remains “a threat to Rwanda and the Great Lakes region”. The FDLR is made up mainly of Hutus who oppose Tutsi influence, and some Hutus are also said to have participated in the genocide in Rwanda.
The panel of experts said an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops in Congo were deployed in three regions of eastern North Kivu – Nyiragongo, Rutshuru and Masisi – when their report was drawn up in April. It said the troops were from the army’s 2nd and 3rd divisions, citing intelligence and security sources close to M23 and the Rwandan army and confidential documents.
The experts said Rwandan military interventions and operations in the three areas “were crucial to the impressive territorial expansion achieved between January and March 2024.”
The top UN official in Congo, Special Envoy Bintou Keita, told the council on Monday that she was deeply concerned about the continued rapid expansion of attacks by the rebel group M23 and the capture of several strategic locations in Eastern North Kivu in the past two weeks, and the transshipment to neighboring South Kivu.
She said the violence has reached a peak “alarming levels” and there is a risk that a broader regional conflict will arise.
The panel of experts also said that “the rapidly escalating M23 crisis risked sparking a broader regional conflict.”
A two week long humanitarian ceasefire began last Friday in eastern Congo, but there is no indication that the violence has stopped.
The experts said they documented the proliferation and use of advanced military technology and equipment, mainly from Rwanda, by M23 and Rwandan forces in violation of a U.N. arms embargo. They cited short-range air defense systems, drone-borne mortars and 120mm guided mortars that have “precision-strike capability and high lethality.”
The experts said the developments changed the “conflict dynamics,” including the grounding of all Congolese military air assets.
In December, a new political-military movement called Alliance Fleuve Congo, or AFC, was launched with the aim of uniting armed groups, political parties and civil society against the Congolese government. But experts said the AFC “failed to unite the majority of political and armed actors against the government.”
The panel said Congolese government forces continued to use the Wazelendo group of irregular fighters in North Kivu and the FDLR “as proxies” in the fight against the M23 and Rwandan forces, as well as against Burundian government forces, exacerbating tensions between Rwanda and Burundi.