Tanzania to host DRC, Rwanda leaders as Kigali-backed M23 rebels fight on

UN says nearly 3,000 people had been confirmed killed and 2,880 wounded since M23 rebels entered DRC's Goma city on January 26, and that final tolls were likely much higher.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame is due to meet Felix Tshisekedi, his counterpart from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in Tanzania as regional leaders convene in a bid to defuse the conflict in DRC's eastern provinces.

Kagame and Tshisekedi are due to attend a joint summit in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday, bringing together the eight countries of the East African Community and 16-member South African Development Community.

The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has rapidly seized swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC in an offensive that has left thousands dead and displaced vast numbers.

The group took the strategic city of Goma last week and is pushing into the neighbouring South Kivu province in the latest episode of decades-long turmoil in the region.

Since the M23 re-emerged in 2021, several peace talks hosted by Angola and Kenya have failed. Last month Türkiye said it is ready to provide any support needed to resolve the dispute between Rwanda and DRC, should both parties desire it.

Rwanda denies military support for the M23 but a UN report said last year it had around 4,000 troops in DRC and profited from smuggling vast amounts of gold and coltan — a mineral vital to phones and laptops — out of the country.

Kigali accuses Kinshasa of sheltering the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Local fears

The summit comes as the M23 advances on the town of Kavumu, which hosts an airport critical to supplying Congolese troops.

Kavumu is the last barrier before the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu on the Rwandan border, where panic has set in.

Congo River alliance and M23 leader Corneille Nangaa (4th R) and M23 spokeperson Willy Ngoma (2nd R) and M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa (R) gather for a press conference in Goma on February 6, 2025. (Photo/AFP)

A Bukavu resident said shops were barricading their fronts and emptying storerooms for fear of looting, while schools and universities suspended classes on Friday.

"The border with Rwanda is open but almost impassable because of the number of people trying to cross. It's total chaos," they said.

UN rights chief Volker Turk warned: "If nothing is done, the worst may be yet to come, for the people of the eastern DRC, but also beyond the country's borders."

'Gang rape, slavery'

Turk said nearly 3,000 people had been confirmed killed and 2,880 wounded since M23 entered Goma on January 26, and that final tolls were likely much higher.

He also said his team was "currently verifying multiple allegations of rape, gang rape and sexual slavery".

The M23 has already installed its own mayor and local authorities in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

It has vowed to go all the way to the national capital Kinshasa, even though it lies about 1,600 kilometres away across the vast country, which is roughly the size of Western Europe.

The DRC army, which has a reputation for poor training and corruption, has been forced into multiple retreats.

The offensive has raised fears of regional war, given that several countries are engaged in supporting DRC militarily, including South Africa, Burundi and Malawi.

Regional foreign ministers gathered on Friday for the first day of the summit in Tanzania ahead of their leaders on Saturday.

Kenyan foreign secretary Musalia Mudavadi said there was a "golden opportunity" to find a solution, calling for the previous peace processes hosted by Angola and Kenya to be merged into one.

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Source: TRT