The Congo War Is Restarting: Why the Ceasefire Was Never Real and What Comes Next

Officially, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is at peace. But on the ground in the jungles of eastern Congo, that peace is barely an illusion. Government forces, powerful militias, the M23 insurgent army, and thousands of Rwandan troops continue to pour bodies, blood, and bullets into the conflict zone.

Forces are massing for an upcoming push, an Islamic State affiliate is exploiting the chaos to massacre civilians, and ceasefire talks between the Congo and M23 have completely stalled. A peace deal brokered by the United States in June was incomplete from the start — it excluded M23 entirely, never required Rwanda to admit it was at war, and served primarily as diplomatic cover for lucrative mineral extraction deals. Now, as fighting intensifies across North and South Kivu provinces, the conflict is entering a phase that could prove even more ruinous than the last.

Who Is Fighting and Why: The Complicated Landscape of Eastern Congo

The short answer to who is fighting in eastern Congo is straightforward enough: Congolese government forces are battling a rebel insurgency called M23, which is supported by neighboring Rwanda, primarily in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. But the long answer reveals why the idea of peace was always fragile to the point of fiction.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo does have a proper military, but it is underequipped, underfunded, undermotivated, and undertrained. These forces have been fighting in the east for many years — not just against M23, but against some 120 or more small insurgencies spread across the region. The Congolese military does not fight alone; it is accompanied by a range of government-allied militias of varying power and varying willingness to follow government directions.

From the government’s perspective, these militias are often far more motivated to fight than regular troops, since they tend to be locally based forces defending their families and communities. On the less positive side, many of them are prone to committing wartime atrocities — a recurring theme across every faction in this conflict.

On the opposing side, M23 has been active in the Congo for over a decade. After being defeated in battle in 2012 and going dormant, the group reemerged as a serious threat starting in 2022. Since then, M23 has grown progressively stronger, eventually capturing the two provincial capitals of Goma in North Kivu and Bukavu in South Kivu, along with numerous other major townships. M23 leads a loose rebel confederacy known as the Congo River Alliance, and together they have secured the DRC’s entire border with Rwanda, a large stretch of the border with Uganda, and a growing portion of North and South Kivu territory.

Critically, M23 fights with the direct backing of Rwanda — something Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his government have consistently denied. Despite those denials, M23 has benefited from the front-line support of several thousand Rwandan troops at any given time, along with logistical, financial, tactical, strategic, and diplomatic support. Satellite imagery of Rwanda’s Kanombe Military Cemetery shows a massive expansion of grave sites within the last year, at a time when Rwanda’s forces are not engaged in any other conflict of comparable magnitude. For all practical purposes, M23 today is a Rwandan proxy force, although its goals and Rwanda’s goals do not always align.

The Drivers of Conflict: Ethnicity, Power, and a Resource War

Several key forces drive the fighting in eastern Congo. Ethnic tensions play a major role: both M23 and Rwanda are led by ethnic Tutsis, the same group that was on the receiving end of the Rwandan Genocide. They frame their actions partly as an effort to protect Tutsi civilians and confront aggression from ethnic Hutu militants — the same ethnic group that perpetrated the genocide. In practice, however, the ethnic dimension alone does a poor job explaining the current conflict.

M23 also harbors a stated ambition to challenge and potentially overthrow the Congolese government in the capital of Kinshasa, a notoriously corrupt collection of leaders. Many M23 fighters actively seek to bring about the fall of the Kinshasa government. This is a conflict populated by bad actors on every side; Kinshasa is no more immune from that characterization than M23.

But the crux of the conflict — and certainly the bulk of Rwanda’s motivation — is that this is a resource war. North and South Kivu are awash in valuable minerals. The region is home to massive reserves of coltan, a resource in high demand across the developed world to fuel the global transition to renewables.

It also contains significant deposits of gold, diamonds, tin, wolframite, limited oil and gas, and lucrative timbers and agricultural zones. Similar to how Russia has used the Wagner Group to oversee mineral harvesting across Africa, Rwanda uses M23 — but in Rwanda’s case, the arrangement is even more advantageous. Now that M23 has secured the entire Rwandan border, it can smuggle materials into Rwanda at will, with Rwanda processing those goods or selling them raw as if they originated from Rwandan territory.

In return, M23 gets land, military backing, and a share of the profit.

The Ceasefire That Wasn’t: A Diplomatic Smoke-and-Mirrors Display

In June, the Congo and Rwanda signed a peace deal mediated by the United States. The key terms required Rwanda to withdraw troops from the Congo, the Congo to dismantle a Hutu militia, both sides to stop supporting non-state actors, and each nation to sign lucrative mineral supply deals with the United States — positioning Washington to secure resources from both countries. But the deal was incomplete to the point of being hardly a truce at all.

First and foremost, the deal did not include M23. Despite being a Rwandan proxy, M23 comes with its own distinct motivations and ample ability to act contrary to Rwanda’s wishes. Nor did the deal include any other members of M23’s rebel alliance, or any of the non-state actors fighting alongside the Congo.

And although the deal got Rwanda to agree to peace, it did not get Rwanda to admit it had ever been at war. Rwanda has never acknowledged its participation in the conflict — something it still has not done and was not asked to do under the auspices of this peace deal. As a result, Rwanda does not have to act as if it is even slightly constrained by the document, and has given only the briefest period of token compliance before making ready for a return to battle.

The peace deal was signed because Washington and its allies understood that it is bad form to sign deals to develop an active war zone. Both Rwanda and the DRC understood they could attract massive Western investment by signing a deal, and so they did, with the Trump administration taking credit and allied governments conspicuously declining to raise real concerns. As Responsible Statecraft reported, US investors were allowed to swarm into the Congo before the ink on the peace deal was even dry.

Meanwhile, the Congo and M23 had been engaged in a parallel effort, mediated by Qatar, to find a peace deal of their own. They even signed a so-called ‘declaration of principles’ — a non-binding document in which they agreed rhetorically that they were interested in eventually reaching a real peace. But once Western investment efforts got underway, those real peace talks fell apart. Scheduled negotiations did not happen, and although both sides remain technically present at the negotiating table, talks are completely stalled with no indication that progress will resume at any point in the future.

Fighting That Never Stopped: The Breakdown on the Ground

With a peace deal that is not a peace deal governing a proxy war that supposedly is not a proxy war, between two sides that function more like twenty, it is no surprise that things have broken down again. The fighting in eastern Congo never really stopped in the first place. Even while peace talks were ongoing, it was only the Congolese military proper that stopped fighting M23 directly. Powerful pro-government militias in North and South Kivu, particularly a coalition known as the Wazalendo — meaning ‘patriots’ — continued to engage M23 regularly in skirmishes, short offensives, and pushes in either direction to dispute control of villages, highways, resource mines, and more.

During that same period, before direct peace talks between the Congo and M23 even broke down, Congolese forces were still coming into intermittent contact across the front line. In mid-August, Congolese forces directly repelled an M23 advance, while Wazalendo and other militia fighters battled M23 on several other fronts simultaneously.

In the last couple of weeks, after it became clear that the Congo-M23 talks in Qatar would stall for the long run, the Congolese government has been accused of preparing a new military assault. According to M23’s rebel alliance, Congolese forces launched a major two-pronged offensive on September 8, starting with forces positioned in the city of Uvira and in the city of Bujumbura on the territory of neighboring Burundi. M23 claims that government offensive targeted civilian areas using heavy artillery and drones. A few days prior, Congolese forces had engaged in a failed offensive to capture the town of Shoa, where they and their allied militias briefly gained control before being pushed out by an M23 counter-assault.

As if to confirm that the Congolese government was no longer interested in discussions of peace, President Felix Tshisekedi turned down an invitation to a new series of regional peace talks with M23 set to be held in South Africa. Although there were semi-legitimate reasons for Tshisekedi not to attend — for fear that the conference hosts might be preferential to M23 and other parts of the Congo’s opposition — it was still a chance to re-engage M23 outside of the stalled Qatar talks, and that opportunity was declined.

Gross Human Rights Violations on All Sides

Global observers and conflict trackers have had no illusions about the nature of the fighting on the ground. For years, M23, Congolese forces, the Wazalendo, and all other groups party to this conflict have been accused of horrific war crimes and atrocities. In early September, the United Nations captured headlines with a report detailing what it called ‘gross human rights violations’ on all sides of the conflict since late 2024.

According to the UN report, M23 has engaged in regular summary executions, forced disappearances, forced recruitment, and torture in the areas it controls, while also recruiting child soldiers. The Congolese armed forces were accused of deliberately slaughtering civilians after infighting between themselves and the Wazalendo. The Wazalendo themselves were accused of looting and the recruitment of child soldiers for front-line combat.

Rwanda was also implicated, with the report maintaining that Rwanda bears direct responsibility for atrocities committed by members of its armed forces while they fight on Congolese territory. All sides were accused of the mass, routine use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

In the city of Uvira in South Kivu province — still under DRC government control — at least four unarmed protesters were shot dead by the military while demonstrating against a military officer accused of supporting M23. Uvira is the same area identified as a staging ground for what appears to be a government buildup in advance of a new push into M23 territory.

The ADF: An Islamic State Affiliate Exploiting the Chaos

Other armed groups in the Congo are taking advantage of the chaos and confusion to violently advance their own goals. In North Kivu province and the northerly province of Ituri, a group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has carried out a sequence of mass murders against civilian populations. The ADF is an affiliate of the Islamic State movement, known for regular attacks on villages that use machetes and other bladed weapons to deal out unimaginably brutal violence.

Most recently, the ADF slaughtered at least 71 people who were attending a funeral in the district of Ntoyo in North Kivu province. That was the third ADF attack to kill over 40 civilians at a time within just the last six weeks, and it came on the same day that a separate group of ADF fighters killed another 18 people. The powers that be in the region are incentivized to keep the world’s attention elsewhere, no matter what horrors the ADF perpetrates — meaning the group effectively benefits from the broader arrangement in which all major parties maintain the illusion of peace.

Why All Sides Want to Maintain the Illusion of Peace While Returning to War

The return to fighting in the Congo has been met with silence from the international community. The White House, which presided over a signing ceremony and a handshake between Tshisekedi and Kagame, has yet to acknowledge what is happening. When asked about it directly in late August, Trump responded of his purported peace deal: ‘For 35 years, it was a vicious war. Nine million people were killed with machetes.

I stopped it…I got it stopped and saved lots of lives.’ No revision of that statement has been forthcoming.

There is at least one course of action that is in the Congo’s, Rwanda’s, and America’s common interests: to keep up the illusion of peace. Through the signing of the deal, Rwanda has bought itself all the diplomatic cover it needs to maintain its capture and further its exploitation of a chunk of territory almost half as large as Rwanda itself. The Congo has been able to facilitate exceptionally lucrative resource extraction deals, with expected returns that could completely offset the mineral losses it has sustained with Rwanda thus far. The United States gets to please wealthy business leaders, secure important mineral supply chains, and push Trump closer to the Nobel Peace Prize he appears determined to pursue regardless of the facts on the ground.

But if the veneer of peace is so profitable, why return to fighting at all? The answer is multifaceted. Both the Congo and Rwanda appear motivated by profit maximization — both sides want to continue capturing mines, timber forests, and other lucrative assets, with their militia and proxy allies motivated to increase their share.

M23, though a Rwandan proxy, has its own goals: expansion of territory, continuation of fighting against Hutu armed groups, and an eventual overthrow of the Kinshasa government. Rwanda cannot simply tell M23 to abandon these objectives, because it is M23 that secures Congolese territory on Rwanda’s behalf and controls the mines and smuggling routes — and thus the money. The Congolese government, despite its general lack of interest in the well-being of its people, still must do something about the group occupying its territory in order to maintain legitimacy.

And the Wazalendo and other government-aligned militias have their own axes to grind against M23, and are no easier for the Congo to control than M23 is for Rwanda to control.

This conflict creates a mess of overlapping incentives, but all participants are incentivized to pursue one common goal: maintain the illusion of peace while returning to war.

Rwandan Troop Movements and the Buildup in South Kivu

During the same days that Congolese forces launched their offensive and attempted to capture the town of Shoa, a force of at least 750 Rwandan soldiers was reported as having arrived on the inland island of Idjwi in the southern part of Lake Kivu. They are likely massing to travel toward the same battle zone in South Kivu, and in all likelihood, they will not be the only reinforcements.

Satellite imagery of Rwanda’s Kanombe Military Cemetery already showed a massive expansion of grave sites within the last year, underscoring the scale of Rwanda’s undeclared military involvement. The arrival of fresh troops signals that Rwanda intends to deepen its commitment to the conflict even as it benefits from the diplomatic cover provided by the June peace deal.

Where the Conflict Goes From Here: South Kivu as the Next Flashpoint

Force concentration on both sides suggests that the next phase of violence will be concentrated in South Kivu province, with the ultimate objective being the retaking of the regional capital Bukavu. Unlike the city of Goma to the north, Bukavu is only minimally insulated by surrounding M23-controlled territory, and it is near a buffer zone maintained by Burundi meant to ensure that M23 cannot pose a direct threat as it attempted to do a few months ago.

Moving inward from Uvira and Bujumbura, Congolese and allied forces can zero in on a rural district called Kamanyola, a strategically critical juncture that could be turned into a launchpad for a recapture of the city. Wazalendo fighters are keeping up pressure in other areas across South Kivu, keeping M23 forces occupied and forcing them to divide their attention. The 750 incoming Rwandan troops appear to be headed for this zone as well.

In North Kivu, the situation is more complicated. Wazalendo fighters can operate asymmetrically in M23-controlled territory, but it is M23 that is pushing outward and taking control of a highway that would allow it to move gradually toward the capital. Right now, South Kivu is far more vulnerable to a counteroffensive, whereas operations in the north will probably consist mostly of attempts at containment.

The Human Cost: Civilians Trapped With No Way Out

For the people living in the middle of this conflict, the convergence of interests among all major parties represents the worst possible outcome. They are caught between a mess of warring factions, all willing to engage in atrocities at scale, but none willing to admit to the rest of the world that innocent civilians could possibly be suffering. Even groups like the Islamic State-affiliated ADF benefit from this arrangement, with the powers that be incentivized to keep the world’s attention elsewhere regardless of the horrors being perpetrated.

The people in the middle are forced to endure their situation in silence — and quite likely, that silence will be enforced by all sides. Warning lights are flashing bright red across eastern Congo to signal an imminent return to full-scale conflict. Unlike warning signs in other situations, this rapid devolution is being signaled through an active return to fighting on several fronts. It is not an abstraction; it is a transparently obvious series of changes that should make it impossible to claim this region is still governed by a ceasefire.

And yet, as of now, that claim persists.

M23’s Parallel Government: Building a Rebel State in Occupied Territory

Beyond the battlefield, global conflict observers are tracking what appears to be a rapidly developing initiative by M23 to transition its captured territory into a zone administered by a parallel rebel government. This effort represents a significant escalation in the nature of the conflict — M23 is no longer simply fighting for territory but is actively working to build up its own state structure, creating a unified government administration alongside its rebel partners in a way that previous Rwanda-backed insurgencies in the Congo have not done.

This state-building project has several critical dimensions. M23 is working to lock down mineral supply chains and establish firm control over the critical infrastructure required to maintain both smuggling routes and avenues to facilitate the movement of troops and equipment. The group is effectively institutionalizing its hold on the economic lifeblood of eastern Congo, ensuring that the flow of coltan, gold, tin, and other valuable resources continues uninterrupted through its territory and across the Rwandan border.

Simultaneously, M23 is stepping up its forced recruitment efforts in the territory it controls, institutionalizing its attempts to conscript locals and targeting children as part of that effort. This mirrors the findings of the recent United Nations report on gross human rights violations, but the shift toward institutionalization suggests that what was once opportunistic conscription is becoming a systematic policy of the emerging rebel administration.

M23’s military operations have also evolved in character. Its efforts to fight local militias have become much less about the push and pull of territory and much more about the consolidation of control over chunks of territory — capturing areas with the intent to hold them permanently and prevent any rival armed groups from moving through. This transition from fluid guerrilla warfare to territorial consolidation is a hallmark of insurgencies that are attempting to establish themselves as governing entities, and it signals that M23’s ambitions extend far beyond the battlefield.

The Return of Joseph Kabila: A Former Dictator in M23’s Orbit

There is one other dimension of the conflict that must be acknowledged, and it may prove to be among the most consequential: the return of Joseph Kabila. Kabila ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a dictator from 2001 until 2019, before handing over control to the current president, Felix Tshisekedi, in a relationship that started off cordial but rapidly deteriorated. After roughly two years in self-imposed exile, Kabila returned to the Congo this past April, touching down in the city of Goma — which is firmly under M23 control.

At the time, the Congo’s former dictator maintained that he was only there to serve as a mediator, to assist in peace efforts and help stabilize the country’s internal conflict. But from the start, Kabila’s true intentions were unclear, and it has become quite obvious that the current government under Tshisekedi has no intention of treating Kabila as a neutral actor. Kabila has been on trial in absentia in the Congo on charges of treason, and he also stands accused of homicide, torture, and sexual violence through his alleged partnership with M23. In late August, a military prosecutor for the Congo requested the death penalty for Kabila if he is found guilty.

According to the Congolese government, Kabila and M23 have been in league all along. But even if they were not before, they certainly are now. Kabila and Tshisekedi are bitter rivals with a longstanding and entirely mutual grudge, and Kabila is perhaps the only person in the Congo with a sufficient power base to challenge Tshisekedi outright. There is now a very real chance that Kabila could emerge as a figurehead at the helm of the M23 movement — either as a genuine leader or as a convenient puppet through whom M23 can claim a greater legitimacy to govern and wage war.

Kabila’s Political Maneuvering and the South Africa Summit

Notably, Kabila appears to be unifying all sorts of opposition to Tshisekedi under a single umbrella. At the South Africa summit that Tshisekedi refused to attend in early September, Kabila met with over 175 leaders from across the broad Congolese political spectrum. Those included civil rights figures, religious leaders, and long-time members of the political opposition — all of whom were in the same place, at the same time, to hear any pitch for unity with M23 that Kabila might have decided to offer.

This gathering takes on added significance in light of M23’s broader efforts to legitimize itself. M23 and its allies have been expanding their social media presence in recent weeks, building a public justification for the idea that they should be trusted to lead the Congo and framing Congolese soldiers — and especially the Wazalendo militias — as the true perpetrators of the atrocities that have rocked the nation. The combination of Kabila’s political gravitas and M23’s propaganda offensive represents a two-pronged strategy to erode the Tshisekedi government’s legitimacy both domestically and internationally.

During that same period, the Congolese government denied visas and tried to inhibit travel for opposition leaders attempting to attend the Africa summit, possibly playing unintentionally into M23’s hands. After all, if those opposition figures fear they cannot return home through official channels, they still have a way back into the Congo — but they would have to go through Goma, firmly under rebel control. By attempting to suppress political opposition through travel restrictions, Tshisekedi’s government may be inadvertently pushing more of the Congolese political class into M23’s orbit, strengthening the very rebel movement it is trying to destroy.

The Illusion Persists: Western Investment and the Fiction of Peace

The illusion of peace in the Congo does not match reality, and not even slightly. To the extent that the fighting had ever slowed down, it is now back underway, with forces massing for a new series of battles that will continue for months at a minimum. M23’s rebel faction is slowly growing into a rival government with the full backing of neighboring Rwanda, while the Tshisekedi government fully intends to bring them down. A former dictator is positioning himself as a potential figurehead for the insurgency, opposition politicians are being drawn into M23’s gravitational pull, and forced recruitment — including of children — is being institutionalized across occupied territory.

All the while, Western dollars will pour into the Congo in greater volumes than ever, all in the name of a peace that never truly existed. The June peace deal continues to serve its intended purpose — not as a framework for ending the conflict, but as a permission structure for resource extraction and diplomatic convenience. Every major stakeholder benefits from maintaining the fiction: Rwanda deepens its exploitation of occupied territory, the DRC attracts foreign investment, the United States secures mineral supply chains, and M23 builds the foundations of a parallel state. The only people who do not benefit are the millions of Congolese civilians trapped between warring factions, suffering atrocities that the international community has every incentive to ignore.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the main parties fighting in the Congo conflict?

The main combatants are the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government forces and allied militias (particularly the Wazalendo coalition), fighting against the M23 rebel insurgency and its Congo River Alliance. M23 is directly supported by several thousand Rwandan troops, along with logistical, financial, tactical, and diplomatic backing from Rwanda, despite Rwanda’s consistent denials of involvement.

Why did the June 2024 peace deal fail to stop the fighting?

The June 2024 US-brokered peace deal was incomplete from the start. It excluded M23 entirely despite M23 being the primary rebel force, did not include any other non-state actors, and never required Rwanda to acknowledge it had been at war. The deal primarily served as diplomatic cover to facilitate lucrative Western mineral extraction deals with both the DRC and Rwanda, rather than as a genuine framework for ending hostilities.

What resources are driving the conflict in eastern Congo?

North and South Kivu provinces contain massive reserves of coltan (in high demand for renewable energy technology), gold, diamonds, tin, wolframite, limited oil and gas, and valuable timber and agricultural zones. M23 has secured the entire Rwandan border, allowing it to smuggle these materials into Rwanda, which then processes or sells them as if they originated on Rwandan territory, while M23 receives land, military backing, and a share of profits.

What war crimes have been documented in the conflict?

A United Nations report from early September 2024 documented gross human rights violations by all sides. M23 has engaged in summary executions, forced disappearances, forced recruitment, torture, and child soldier recruitment. Congolese armed forces deliberately slaughtered civilians after infighting with the Wazalendo. Rwanda bears direct responsibility for atrocities by its forces on Congolese territory. All sides were accused of routinely using sexual violence as a weapon of war.

What role is Joseph Kabila playing in the conflict?

Former Congolese dictator Joseph Kabila returned from exile in April, landing in Goma under M23 control. He faces treason charges in absentia and has been accused of homicide, torture, and sexual violence through an alleged partnership with M23. At a South Africa summit that President Tshisekedi refused to attend, Kabila met with over 175 opposition leaders, positioning himself as a potential figurehead who could lend M23 greater political legitimacy and challenge Tshisekedi’s government.

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• https://www.criticalthreats.org/briefs/africa-file/challenges-to-sustainable-drc-m23-peace
• https://theconversation.com/joseph-kabila-is-on-trial-for-treason-in-the-drc-what-the-case-against-the-former-president-is-all-about-264412
• https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/08/23/in-drc-military-prosecutor-seeks-death-penalty-against-former-president-joseph-kabila_6744634_4.html