The fall of the capital of North Kivu, Goma and Bukavu the capital of South Kivu could mean the end of the Kinshasa regime which is unable to stop the Rwandan-backed rebel offensive. Tshisekedi’s days are numbered.

The fall of Goma on 27 January and the Bukavu on 16 February confirmed fears that the country was on the brink of collapse. According to the United Nations, more than 7,000 people were killed and as many wounded in the fighting. Humanitarian sources say the death toll could be higher.This disaster is the latest consequence of a 16-year conflict that began with the failure to implement the peace agreement signed on 23 March 2009 between Kinshasa and the Tutsi-led National Congress for the Defence of the People (NCDP), which was fighting for the integration of its members into Congolese institutions and
the national army.

M23 fighters moving along the road towards Goma. © Monusco/Sylvain Liechti

Three years later, the March 23 Movement (M23), formed by ex-NCDP soldiers, resumed fighting, claiming that the agreement had not been respected and justifying their rebellion by the persecution of Congolese Tutsis by the FARDC, Congolese militias and the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (DFLR), created in 2000 by former Rwandan army officers who had perpetrated the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.  Following a new peace deal in December 2013, the war resumed in March 2022 with much more intensity.
The Kinshasa authorities claim that Rwanda’s involvement is motivated by a quest for Congolese minerals. The stakes are high. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was the world’s top producer of tantalum in 2023 with 980 tons, accounting for 41 per cent of the global total, while Rwanda came in second with 540 tons.

Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups. Monusco/Sylvain Liechti

However, some analysts argue that war is not necessary to acquire minerals. This is because minerals are smuggled out of the DRC. In addition, this accusation overlooks another factor: Rwandan concern over the ongoing massacres of Tutsis in the DRC. According to Genocide Watch, since 2017, attacks accompanied by hate speech have systematically targeted the “Banyamulenge” ethnic Tutsis in South Kivu province.Perpetrated by Mai-Mai groups, Burundian RED Tabara rebels and FARDC soldiers, they have caused more than a thousand deaths. What Kinshasa perceives as Rwandan aggression is seen as an act of solidarity with the Tutsis of the Kivus, in a context where the common border is seen as a legacy of colonialism, dividing territories that belonged to the Kingdom of Rwanda before the Berlin
Conference of 1885.

Ramaphosa’s interests.
Since the beginning of 2025, the situation in Kinshasa has been desperate. In Goma, the M23, consisting of 4,000 to 5,000 fighters backed by the same number of RDF troops, defeated 20,000 FARDC troops, backed by 1,600 European mercenaries, 1,500 DFLR militiamen, 5,000 Burundian defence troops, thousands of Wazalendos
and 4,000 peacekeepers from the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC), in the face of some
2,000 UN peacekeepers.

The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) Army Chief of Staff, Maj Gen Vincent Nyakarundi. More than five thousand Rwandan soldiers are on the ground in North Kivu. Photo: Minister of Defence.

On 29 January, 288 Romanian mercenaries hired by the private military company Associatia RALF surrendered to the M23. The other soldiers of fortune had left before the M23 attack.

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. He has been accused of supporting the DRC for private business purposes. CC BY-SA 2.0/Ricardo Stuckert / PR

Meanwhile, the situation of the South African troops became more uncomfortable, while tensions between Kigali and Pretoria increased. South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has been accused by Kigali of supporting the DRC for private business purposes. Similar attacks come from South African Economic Freedom Fighters MP Carl Niehaus, who said on 3 February 2025:  “We have used the army to defend the mineral wealth of Ramaphosa and his friends.According to several sources in Pretoria, Ramaphosa’s decision to deploy the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) near the huge Rubaya coltan mine in North Kivu coincides with the interests of the South African Mining Development Association, whose president, Brigitte Motsepe, who is also the CEO of Mmakau Mining Company and the sister of the South African first lady, wants access to the mine.
In another strange coincidence, South Africa’s special envoy to the Great Lakes, Jeff Radebe, is Brigitte Motsepe’s husband.

Ignoring the conclusions of the summit.
A joint summit of the two regional organisations of which the DRC is a member, the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was held in Dar-es-Salaam on 8 February. It instructed the EAC-SADC chiefs of defence to implement an immediate ceasefire and ordered the reopening of supply routes to Goma and its airport.
The summit also ordered the resumption of negotiations “with all state and non-state parties involved”, including the M23, which Kinshasa had refused so far. It also ordered the implementation of modalities for the withdrawal of “uninvited foreign forces” from the DRC.

The Heads of State and Governments met in Dar-es-Salaam to discuss the situation in the DRC. The summit ordered the resumption of negotiations “with all state and non-state parties involved”, including the M23. Photo EAC office

The EU condemned Rwanda’s military presence in the DRC “as a clear violation of international law” while urging the DRC to cease cooperation with the DFLR. But both the EU and the UN which praise the Africans’ ownership of peace processes and crisis settlement are confronted with the stalemate between the African main stakeholders.
The recent Dar-es-Salaam summit urged Tshisekedi to negotiate with his armed opposition, the M23 and the River Congo Alliance. Rwanda, which was not explicitly named as the aggressor at the EAC-SADC summit, did not withdraw its troops. Nor did the summit set a deadline for the withdrawal of the RDF from the DRC.

Félix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His time is gone. Photo: Pres.Office

Time seems to be on the side of the Congolese rebels. They are making progress by the day. Corneille Nangaa, leader of the River Congo Alliance and former chairman of the National Independent Electoral Commission, is adamant that his ultimate goal is to take power in Kinshasa. “We want the total liberation of Congo,” he told reporters before the capture of Goma.
In any case, say political scientists at the Goma-based Pole Institute, even if foreign troops withdraw and armed groups surrender, huge problems of internal division and security for the local population will remain. Some analysts say Tshisekedi’s days are numbered. According to the Brussels daily La Libre Belgique, Western intelligence services are not ruling out a coup against Tshisekedi. (Open Photo: The city of Goma with Nyiragongo volcano in the background. CC BY-SA 2.0/Monusco Photo – M23 fighter. CC BY-SA 2.0/Al Jazeera)

François Misser