In November 1994, the world said, once more, “never again”. Following the genocide of nearly one million Tutsi and other Rwandan ethnic groups, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was founded, and four years later, Rwandan politician Jean-Paul Akayesu became the first person to ever be prosecuted for genocide, setting an example within the nation, as many others from the previous government would be brought to justice. Less than four years later, the new Rwandan government would continue the previous slaughter and displacement of civilians, except in a different location: the Democratic Republic of Congo.

From 1996 to 2003, Rwandan and Ugandan forces invaded and battled within the DRC following tensions remaining from the Rwandan genocide. Two million Congolese were displaced, and 5.4 million people were murdered overall. In 2000, one peak of this war was the six-day war. Throughout Kisangani in the Oriental Province of DRC, hundreds of civilians were killed, and countless villages were bombed. One survivor recalled when speaking to Amnesty International, “I was walking with my grandmother when I was struck by a bomb in my leg. I didn’t know how to get to hospitals; it was dangerous, so we were dealing with the injury at home, but the foot was rotting. On the fifth day, I went to the hospital, but it was too late; they cut off my leg.” Unlike in 1994, however, nobody was prosecuted for their crimes within Congo. With no repercussions and no reparations, these crimes were meant to continue.

Since 2022, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the United Nations have all criticized the armed terror group M23 for its attacks on civilians, fueling the rampant human rights abuses within the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, over 4.6 million people in North and South Kivu have been internally displaced due to M23 attacks. Equally concerning, 1,500 Congolese people were forcibly transferred by M23 to Rwanda in early 2025.

M23, which stands for the March 23 movement, was formed in 2012, years after the Rwandan genocide. Its origins, however, trace back to the conflict that began around the end of the Rwandan genocide. Hutu militias, constituted by some of the Rwandan refugees, formed to fight back against the newly installed Rwandan government. This conflict, however, continued and intensified, leading to Rwanda invading Congo in what would become the First Congo War in 1996. Both the Congolese state and Rwandan-backed militias continued to fight for control of eastern DRC for the next five years. Skirmishes continued despite various efforts by the Congolese government, which repeatedly shifted heads over the decades, particularly after the assassination of President Laurent-Desire Kabila. Some of those efforts were a 2003 peace agreement. However, another peace accord was signed in 2009, between said militias, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), and the DRC government, more successful than the last.

In 2012, those Rwandan-backed militias united, took a new name based on the date of the 2009 peace accord, and tried to take control of eastern Congo. Following years of on-and-off attacks, M23 reorganized in 2022 and began to attempt the capture of the Congolese city of Goma. Despite the rebranding, one thing was the same: their strength and resources came from Rwandan direct support. According to the United Nations, between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan military troops were working alongside M23 as of July 2024. For instance, M23 forces have been working alongside the Rwandan Defense Forces in bombing displacement camps and civilians near Goma.

These ties between M23 and Rwanda have exceeded simple support. United Nations experts have reported that Rwanda has deployed "high-tech systems capable of neutralizing air assets" for rebels to use against the Congolese military. Rwanda has, in the meantime, diplomatically defended the M23, arguing that they are merely protecting the minority Tutsi population from the Congolese state.

These attacks, committed by M23 and backed by Rwanda’s government, have had severe impacts on civilians living in eastern DRC. Francine, a farmer from North Kivu, was in the field alongside her family when M23 rebels invaded her village. “We immediately fled. I was carrying my baby on my back, one child in each hand, [with] the other four running in front of me. I lost sight of my husband. We didn't dare rest because we heard the shots all around.”

Rwandan involvement in the Congo has not been exclusively militaristic either. Part of Rwanda’s reasoning for support for M23 has been the ease of access to raw materials such as coltan, which, according to U.N. experts, has been smuggled from DRC to Rwanda. Many Rwandan manufacturing companies and exporting companies have relied on Congolese minerals, including those obtained from smuggling. In June 2025, Rwanda and the DRC signed the ‘Minerals for Security and Peace Deal’, further linking the economies of the two nations, but in favor of Rwanda.

Rwanda has faced much criticism, but minimal genuine pushback, for its involvement in the DRC. While the United Nations Security Council urged Rwanda to stop supporting M23 in February 2025, and the EU has sanctioned three Rwandan generals for their support for M23, sanctions have not been placed on Rwanda as a whole. Most recently, the United States brokered and placed support behind the aforementioned mineral deal, with the U.S. benefitting highly from it.

“Never again” does not currently and has not meant, for the longest time, never again. Outside of Congo, within Sudan, the genocidal Janjaweed militia, which committed various acts of ethnic cleansing across Darfur, after barely being prosecuted, formed the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Much like the Janjaweed before them, the RSF has targeted civilians, particularly ethnic minorities, as well as Sudanese cultural landmarks, such as looting and destroying centuries-old artifacts in the National Museum in Khartoum; Raphael Lemkin, the scholar who originated the term ‘genocide’, coined the more specific term “cultural genocide” to refer to acts such as this. Much like M23, supported by Rwanda, the RSF is heavily externally backed, receiving both munitions and supplies from the UAE. With both, the fact that the supporting countries (Rwanda and the UAE) are Western-backed nations has played a part in the lack of repercussions for their crimes.

For international law and human rights law to mean anything, prosecution must mean something. Terror groups and extremist militias like the RSF and M23 must not be allowed to form to begin with. Rwanda is where the first case of genocide was actively prosecuted, but for the ICC, ICJ, and UN to truly show that crimes against humanity do not go unpunished, as they have been in Congo, those acts of prosecution must not be the last.

Written by Vernon Demir

Another terrorist ambush by the ADF on Friday 26 September 2025. The target was a Fuso vehicle on the OÏCHA - MAMOVE road. Local sources say that most of the victims were traders on their way to the weekly market in Mamove. At least 8 people are reported dead, and several are still missing.

All the goods on board were also reduced to ashes. The same applies to 7 motorbikes, whose drivers have still not been found.

"There are still people missing because the vehicle behind was attacked. Those who were more or less in front in the cab escaped. Everyone managed in their own way. That's why some people are still in the bush. We hope they will be able to return" KAMBALE KIBWANA Jean-de-Dieu, deputy mayor of the rural commune of Oïcha. 

This local authority did not hide its desolation at this sad situation and called on the security services to take charge of this issue. "The population really has tears in its eyes, because ever since the enemy has been roaming around in the west of the commune, not a week goes by without recording murders", he added.

Following these massacres, the Oïcha civil society has announced a day of mourning for Saturday 27 September in the commune, which is the capital of the Beni territory.  The ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) are one of the deadliest terrorist groups in Africa.

Founded in Uganda in the 1990s to oust President Yoweri Museveni, accused of mistreating Muslims, the group is responsible for a number of violent attacks in Uganda and eastern DRC.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma 

Occupying Goma and Bukavu and large parts of the provinces of North and South Kivu, the Rwandan-backed M23 is moving to a new level of autonomy. It will no longer accept any travel documents issued by the Kinshasa regime to enter the areas under its control.

In a note, Bertrand Bisimwa, the rebel movement's deputy coordinator in charge of political, legal and diplomatic issues, explains this decision, which is due to be implemented by the end of 2025.

He justifies this decision, which is due to come into force on 1 November, "out of a concern for reciprocity", pointing out that it was in February that the Kinshasa regime decided to exclude and no longer recognize administrative documents issued by M23.

As a result, he points out, "any foreign national wishing to enter the areas occupied by his movement must have a visa issued by the latter".

"Visas issued by Kinshasa, as well as any other travel document intended for entry into the occupied zones, are now considered invalid", he continued, adding that this measure would not apply to people who had obtained their visas before February 2025.

He also pointed out that UN personnel holding a service or official passport, as well as a duly recognized courtesy visa, continue to enjoy free and unconditional access to the occupied areas.

Many observers even see it as a means of legitimizing the balkanization of eastern DRC.

"The Washington and Doha agreements are opium administered to #Kinshasa to put it to sleep, while they speed up the establishment of a Rwandan protectorate through the terrorists of #AFC_M23," says Fortifi Lushima, a pan-African activist and coordinator in the DRC of the organization "Urgence Panafricaine".

"Today, they impose visas on all foreign nationals coming from the occupied territories. What will it be tomorrow? A referendum?" He adds.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma

Jedidia Mabela, LUCHA activist and human rights defender, was arrested on Wednesday 1 October, taken to the Public Prosecutor's Office and then to the central prison. This arrest comes in the wake of the bloody crackdown on a sit-in organized by a coalition of citizen movements in front of the Provincial Assembly on Tuesday 30 September. The sit-in took place shortly before the opening of the September 2025 session.

The verdict was handed down on Thursday, 2 October 2025, and it has sent shockwaves through the activist community in Tshopo. Jedija Mabela, an activist with the citizen movement Lutte pour le Changement (LUCHA), was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and fined 1,500,000 Congolese francs in a trial against the provincial governor, Paulin Lendongolia. Mabela's lawyers described the decision as a "unique judgement", denouncing the governor's direct interference in the judicial decision.

Following the judgement handed down by the Kisangani Magistrates' Court, Maître Firmin Yangambi, one of Jedija Mabela's lawyers, did not mince his words. He clearly stated that it was a "judgement dictated by Governor Paulin Lendongolia". Yangambi recalled the governor's career, highlighting his own past role in his rise to power when he was a provincial deputy during a motion of censure against former governor Walle Lofungola.

“We will defend our values to the end. Children like Jedidia are the light of Congo today,” insisted Maître Yangambi, denouncing the governor’s arbitrary actions in using his power to arrest a peaceful citizen. As human rights activists and defenders of freedoms, the lawyers promise fierce opposition: "We will oppose him. Let him know that from now on, we will fight them through all legal channels, and we will bring them down legally."

This trial in flagrante delicto raises serious questions about the independence of the judiciary and freedom of expression in Tshopo province, highlighting the tensions between the provincial authorities and citizen movements demanding more transparent governance that respects fundamental rights.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma

After a three-month parliamentary recess, national MPs and senators returned to their seats on Monday 15 September 2025 in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. In the National Assembly, some of the national MPs took advantage of the start of the ordinary September session to lodge a petition against the president of the lower house of the Congolese parliament, Vital Kamerhe. The same applies to senators, who were eagerly awaiting the opening of the session to take action against Sama Lukonde, president of the upper house of parliament.

According to the petitioners, who are seeking the removal of Vital Kamerhe as President of the Assembly, he is accused of mismanagement within the institution.

The petitioners have several grievances against him, including a lack of transparency in the management of parliamentary business, a failure to take account of the social situation of MPs, and the delay or blockage of parliamentary oversight mechanisms.

Vital Kamerhe has been accused of "opaque management of the chamber's finances, failure to take account of the social situation of MPs, voting on laws lightly, and delaying or blocking the means of parliamentary control", according to Crispin Mbindule, the national MP who initiated the petition.

When Vital Kamerhe spoke at the opening of the September 2025 ordinary session, he asked his fellow national MPs for forgiveness.

“Am I not the one you affectionately call the peacemaker? Even today, I will be a peacemaker to the end. That is why I would like to say to you, if there are any of you who have felt offended, hurt or disturbed in any way by my conduct or by what I have said, that they should accept the expression of my most sincere regrets and I implore their forgiveness", said the Speaker of the National Assembly.

Wait and see

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma

The Democratic Republic of Congo has paid its last respects to Major General Peter Cirimwami Nkuba, who died as a result of bullet wounds sustained in the town of Sake (North Kivu), and Colonel Rugabisha Alexis Lewis, who died in Kelehe in the province of South Kivu during fighting between the army and AFC/M23 rebels. The ceremony was presided over by the Head of State, Félix Tshisekedi, at the Palais du Peuple on Monday 1 September 2025. The ceremony was attended by members of the government, members of the FARDC General Staff, other military officers, diplomats and other political and civil society figures.

The remains of the senior officer, who had been lying in state for more than eight months in the military hospital morgue at Camp Colonel Tshatshi, were displayed to allow the nation to bid him a final farewell.

The two senior officers were posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General for General Cirimwamu and Brigadier-General for Colonel Alexis Rubagisha.

Following the tributes, the funeral cortege headed for the Repos du Soldat cemetery in the commune of Nsele, where the senior officer was laid to rest.

On 23 January 2025, in the middle of an operation in Saké, he was fatally shot as he came to support his troops engaged in violent fighting against the M23 rebels. Rushed to Kinshasa, he succumbed to his injuries the following day at the Camp Tshatshi military hospital.

The military governor of North Kivu, Major General Peter Cirimwami, died on 24 January 2025. He was appointed interim governor of North Kivu in October 2023 to replace Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, who was recalled after the murder of around a hundred followers of the "Uwezo Wa Neno" religious sect in Goma by an elite army unit.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma 

On Tuesday 02 September in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Court of Cassation finally ruled on the case concerning the alleged misappropriation of more than 19 million US dollars, funds intended for the construction of a prison in Kisangani, in the province of Tshopo, by the former Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Constant Mutamba.

After pleadings from both sides (the prosecution and counsel), Constant Mutamba, the former Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals and defendant in the case, was sentenced to three years' hard labor.

In addition to this prison sentence, Constant Mutamba was also sentenced to five years' ineligibility and barred from holding public office after serving his sentence.

Constant Mutamba was taken to the Court of Cassation in an armored vehicle belonging to the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to avoid any slip-up by activists who wanted to accompany this former member of the Suminwa government to his sentencing day.

This verdict comes six days after it was postponed in extremis on Wednesday 27 August. The court gave organizational reasons for the postponement in this tense case.

While some congratulated the courts on this conviction, others said that the entire sum was in the bank and could therefore be returned to the public purse, while other political players had stolen larger sums but were still protected by the system.

After the verdict, Constant Mutamba was taken to the Kinshasa provincial police station, where he spent the night. It is planned that he will serve his sentence in a luxury flat in the "villa la promenade", where he will spend his years under house arrest, as his safety is not guaranteed in prison, given that he brought several people there when he was in power.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma

In a press release published on Thursday 4 September, the Institut national de recherche biomédicale (INRB) confirmed a new Ebola epidemic in Kasai province, reporting 28 suspected cases and 16 deaths in September 2025. The victims include four health workers, giving an alarming case-fatality rate of 57%.

Analyses carried out by INRB have identified the "Zaire" strain, considered to be the most virulent of the Ebola virus. To counter the spread of this disease, said the same source, a rapid intervention team, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), is already on the ground to step up surveillance and contain the situation.

On the spot, the Administrator of the Mweka territory, François Minga Mbengele, highlighted the appearance of episodes of acute diarrhoea among the Bulape population, a worrying symptom linked to the epidemic.

Of the 6 samples received at the Institut national de recherche-biomédicale (INRB) from the Bulape health zone, 5 tested positives for the Zaire strain of Ebola.

According to the Congolese Minister for Public Health, Hygiene and Social Welfare, who made the announcement at a press briefing on Thursday, 04 September 2025, this is the 16th recorded outbreak of the Ebola virus.

The Minister, Dr Roger Kamba, confirmed that "a total of 28 cases and 15 deaths have been recorded in this health zone. This gives us a case-fatality rate of 53.6%".  He went on to say: "Ebola is a serious disease that is spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick or dead person, or by handling an infected dead animal. The danger we face with this disease is the very high mortality rate and direct contamination".

The Health Minister is advising the public to avoid all contact with the sick, who must be cared for and quarantined. He also stresses the need not to handle dead animals and to maintain strict hygiene.

Dr Samuel Roger Kamba, who describes the situation as "very worrying", assures us that the central government is doing its utmost to deal with the situation and to monitor the epidemic closely.

Ebola has been present in the DRC for several decades, but the center of the country has not been affected for some time. In Kasai province, the previous outbreaks of Ebola were reported in 2007 and 2008. In the country, there have been 15 epidemics since the disease was first identified in 1976.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma

In recent days, a number of photos and videos have been circulating on the internet, showing men and women covered in dust in scenes that are both shocking and artistic. Behind these productions lie the paradoxes between the lives of the people and the political and mining operators in the DRC.

"Creativity has always been the soul of our nation. When it is used by artists to bring about change and denounce injustice, it deserves to be applauded. I join their voice", says a Congolese editorialist.

Luilu is a town in Lualaba province, in the Mutshatsha territory, around 30 kilometres from Kolwezi, the provincial capital and world cobalt capital. Rich in mineral resources, Luilu is home to Kamoto Copper Company (KCC), a joint venture between the Swiss giant Glencore (75%) and the Congolese state-owned company Gécamines (25%).

But both it and the region are short of everything, including the basics. "In Kolwezi, finding water is a real challenge, and the inhabitants depend on the few boreholes. Electricity is unstable, and the Luilu-Kolwezi road is a real ordeal. Yes, people in Kolwezi are suffering. The image we show you doesn't always reflect reality," said a young man from the region.

VisitLuilu was launched spontaneously by a group of local comedians who wanted to alert the authorities to the advanced state of disrepair of the town's roads. Overall, it is a questioning of the environmental impact, the counterpart of local communities on the exploitation of strategic resources at a time when the Congo holds a large share of several raw materials.

"How can we explain that just 30 kilometres from Kolwezi, people are living in such a precarious state, even though they are literally sleeping on colossal wealth? This contrast between the resources of the subsoil and the misery of daily life is not only shocking, but unacceptable" said Joël Lamika, initiator of the Congolese consumer movement.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma 

Professors from public universities in the Democratic Republic of Congo staged a sit-in in front of the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday to demand a direct meeting with the Prime Minister, Judith Suminwa Tuluka.

According to sources close to the delegation, the professors declined the offer of a meeting with the deputy head of cabinet of the head of government, arguing that only a deputy prime minister could represent the prime minister under the order of precedence.

This action is part of the persistent demands of the academic body for an improvement in their salary conditions, the honoring of commitments made by the government and the effective implementation of certain promised reforms.

For several weeks now, the teachers' associations have been exerting pressure in an attempt to obtain a frank dialogue with the country's highest authorities. Their categorical refusal to talk to a member of the Prime Minister's office reflects their desire to raise their voice and obtain political answers at the highest level.

No official reaction from the government has yet been received.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma