In their fight over marginalized peoples and access to rare minerals, the Congolese military and Rwanda-backed rebels risk triggering a broader regional war in southeast Africa.

Since the 1990s, Rwanda and Congo have been embroiled in a bitter, protracted conflict of “power, identity and resources” between two ethnic groups: the Hutu and the Tutsis. The latest chapter of their ongoing hostilities has brought them and their neighbors to the brink of war. To understand how they got here, we need to look at the key driving factors: Rwanda, a rebel group called M23 and our technology. 

The 1994 Rwandan genocide saw Hutu extremists massacre hundreds of thousands of Tutsis. To escape retribution from the new Tutsi government installed after the genocide, these Hutu aggressors fled from Rwanda to eastern Congo. To this day, Rwanda, fearful of another event like the Rwandan genocide, uses these escaped Hutu rebels as justification for their interference in eastern Congolese affairs, claiming that the rebels threaten the Tutsi ethnic minority. As Congo-Rwanda ethnic conflicts continued into the 2000s, one of the most prominent rebel groups to emerge was the March 23 Movement (M23). A majority-Tutsi group, M23 believes that by harboring the aforementioned Hutu rebels, the Congolese government is inherently anti-Tutsi. In 2022, the Rwandan military entered Congo to reinforce a burgeoning M23, ostensibly to support their shared goal of protecting Tutsis. 

However, the conflict escalated significantly in January 2025, when M23 successfully captured Goma, a major city on the eastern Congo-Rwanda border. In February 2025, they allegedly also seized Bukavu, another eastern city, with little resistance. The Congolese military, meanwhile, has proven too under-equipped to combat M23’s swift offensive; videos posted to X have even documented them abandoning the very towns under their protection. But while M23 continues to seize more territory than they have in a decade, Rwanda denies official involvement, claiming that such accusations are “misguided” and mischaracterize a nuanced historical conflict. However, the United Nations has presented evidence that there are 4,000 Rwandan soldiers fighting in Congo, and that “M23 recruits are trained under Rwandan supervision and supported by high-tech Rwandan weaponry,” as Ian Wafula writes. 

In the initial siege of Goma, nearly 3,000 people were killed. Since then, more than 520,000 people have fled the city, and those who remain have no access to electricity or running water, all while artillery continually destroys their homes. For women and girls, in particular, conditions are “particularly dangerous,” as The New York Times put it, especially at the “sprawling” and “unsanitary” refugee camps. Doctors Without Borders have described rates of sexual violence as “unprecedented,” as the Council on Foreign Relations cited that Congolese health facilities “reported 572 rape cases during the week ending February 2, 170 of which involved children.” Both sides of the conflict are likely culpable of such violations against children. The UN also alleges that M23 fighters have killed hundreds of civilians in summary executions. The region is also rife with disease, reporting 143 cases of mpox and nearly 100 cases of cholera. In other words, life for Goma’s one million residents has been “hell.”

M23 maintains that they’re protecting the Tutsi minority’s interests. But, as Ruth Maclean of The New York Times writes, “experts say the real reason is Congo’s rare minerals.” The mines in eastern Congo brim with copper, cobalt, lithium and gold —  the minerals that make up our electronics. Found in everything from cell phone chips to car batteries, these ores are highly valuable. M23 has taken note of this, seizing mining towns such as Bukavu and Rubaya. “Lately, UN experts say, [M23 is] taking in $800,000 per month from mines they seized containing coltan,” Maclean reports. 

Rwanda, along with countries like the United States and China, is also seeing these mines for what they’re worth. For all its denials of Congolese involvement, Rwanda has long considered eastern Congo as part of its sphere of influence. Consequently, Rwanda believes they have a right to eastern Congo’s mineral deposits and their tangential profits. According to journalist Martina Schwikowski, “before the M23 rebellion even began, Rwanda’s largest export was Congolese gold.” As such, per The New York Times’ Elian Peltier, UN officials believe “Rwanda seeks to exploit mineral resources in eastern Congo by using M23 as a proxy group” to smuggle ores across the border. So as M23 continues their offensive, it has grown increasingly clear to experts that protecting the Tutsis is really just a pretext for M23 and Rwanda to plunder Congo’s mineral wealth at the expense of civilians. 

However, hope for Goma’s residents came in February 2025, when M23 declared a unilateral ceasefire, citing a “humanitarian crisis.” Many expressed skepticism that the Congolese military would uphold the ceasefire given past failures to contain the violence. But, as they continue to seize townships and press across the country, it seems that M23 isn’t holding themselves to the truce agreement either. 

While many countries have denounced M23 as a terrorist organization, the international community “ha[s] yet to apply the same level of pressure to Rwanda” for funding the rebel group, largely due to Rwanda’s status as a “donor darling” among the West. “Rwanda, a country very dependent on aid, has worked to make itself useful internationally” by aiding UN missions and taking in refugees, Maclean writes. But while the West equivocates on any sort of rebuke, neighboring countries like Burundi, South Africa and Uganda have sent their own troops to the conflict, exacerbating the risk of broader war breaking out in the already unstable region. Also in the dead space of the West’s nonresponse, M23 pledged to “march to [Congo’s] capital, Kinshasa, nearly a thousand miles to the west, and take over the whole country,” a plan that spells even more humanitarian suffering, per Maclean and Caleb Kabanda. So as Red Cross official Myriam Favier said, until any sort of stronger intervention occurs in the region, “We have days of mass burials ahead of us.”  

GET INVOLVED:

To help Congo’s civilian population, consider supporting the following humanitarian groups:  Save the Children works to help Congolese children facing extreme hunger, Women for Women’s initiatives support Congolese women experiencing violence and UNHCR is a United Nations refugee agency helping civilians safely reach aid zones.