Identifying the Broader Lines and Connecting the Dots in the Current DRC Crisis

In June, the Egmont Institute for International Relations co-organized a conference with Johan Borgstam, the EU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, and his team. This commentary draws on the presentations and exchanges held during that conference, yet the author remains the sole responsible for this commentary

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IDENTIFYING THE BROADER LINES AND CONNECTING THE DOTS IN THE CURRENT DRC CRISIS

The current crisis in the DRC is in many ways a repetition of history – root causes for the armed conflict in Eastern DRC remain very much the same as one or even two decades ago – and in other ways it reflects new security developments on both a continental and global scale. It has also several dimensions: a national, a regional and an international one, making it a complex crisis, as the perspectives are many and often conflicting or overlapping. The following analysis identifies global and continental trends mirrored in the crisis and takes stock of the national, regional and international connection points which are playing out in the DRC today.

History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Questions about (bad) governance, inclusion and exclusion of certain populations, the creation and proliferation of armed groups, respect of sovereign borders, managing natural resources, and security sector reform have been at the center of crises in the DRC over the past two decades. The same topics remain at the core of the current crisis, yet this time in a different international context. An unfolding global power competition has pushed norms about democracy, accountability, gender equality and human rights to the back, while armed conflicts have multiplied across the world, firmly positioning national security interests at the forefront. Four trends emerging in this international context are mirrored in the DRC crisis and in the Great Lakes region more broadly.

global trends mirrored in the drc crisis

First, the global decline of democracy. According to the V-Dem Institute, almost three quarters of the world’s population live in autocracies, meaning that for the first time in more than 20 years, the world has fewer democracies than autocracies. As a consequence, political and civil rights have deteriorated across the world, evidenced by a shrinking freedom of expression.

This global trend is reflected in the DRC, which has seen not one, but two highly irregular consecutive elections: in 2018 the electoral process was delayed but seemingly correct, yet the officially published results reflected a deal between candidates rather than the actual results of the vote, putting in place not the winner, but one of the runners-up in the presidential seat. The 2023 election process saw instances of spectacular fraud and rule-breaking, while the compilation of the received results also represented important fraud. A shrinking space for freedom of expression is also mirroring worldwide trends in the Congo with journalists arbitrarily arrested, kidnapped or disappeared, especially related to the renewed fighting against M23/AFC in the East of the country.

Second, the new coup wave taking place across the African continent since 2020 has seen 16 coup attempts and 9 successful coups in less than five years. While most of these coups have taken place in the Sahel region, and while the so-called coup attempt in Kinshasa in 2024 hardly could be considered as such, the Congolese armed forces have long been under heavy pressure from fighting armed groups in the East of the DRC. Yet, that pressure reached a new high at the start of 2025, when the Rwanda-supported rebel group M23/AFC managed to take over two major cities in the East of the DRC: Goma and Bukavu, after three years of fighting.

Heavy corruption and embezzlement, often related to the notion of “war as business’ among higher officers in the Congolese army has also led to frictions both within the army and between the army and the authorities. Internal divisions along identitarian lines and competition with armed groups, also in support of the DRC government, such as the Wazalendo, have further fragmented the cohesion of the army, just as the lack of (regular) pay and bad treatment of the military by the authorities have undermined the trust and loyalty between the armed forces and the government. On the one hand, the divisions and fragmentation within the military acts as a coup proofing strategy – making a coup less likely. On the other hand, the continued lack of mutual trust and respect between the authorities and the armed forces constitute a permanent coup risk if elements of the army decide to act jointly.

Third, the past few years have seen an intensified chase for natural resources, further accelerated by Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine and more recently, the US administration’s explicit desire for making deals involving critical minerals and resources. As the country hosting the most of the world’s natural resources, including the largest producer of cobalt and coltan, the interest in the Congo’s resources is not new, yet it remains a major, yet not the sole, factor in the current crisis, drawing attention from both regional neighbors and international actors.

Regionally, both Rwanda and Uganda’s longstanding presence in the East of the DRC have been closely linked to its many natural resources. Uganda’s formal and informal gold trade with the DRC has been well documented, just as Rwanda’s continued exploitation of its neighbor’s resources. Chinese controlled companies produce 67% of DRC cobalt production, while the country controls 67% of refinery of cobalt on world scale. The EU’s MoU with the DRC on sustainable raw materials from October 2023 (and later the more criticized one – now blocked – with Rwanda), and the US’s interest in a resource deal with the DRC in the context of negotiations with Rwanda are yet two examples of this.

An increasingly competitive and complex playing field

These three trends take place in the context of a fourth trend: an increasingly competitive and complex playing field. Actors taking part of conflicts have multiplied: the armed groups taking part of the fighting, the upsurge of regionalized ad-hoc coalitions and Private Military Companies (PMC) trying to quell rebellions, but also the actors attempting to end them through negotiation and mediation.

The DRC crisis is a type example of this competitive and complex playing field with over 100 armed groups fighting in the East of the country, some with support from regional neighbors but also national armies and PMC’s supporting the Congolese army. Both Burundi and Uganda have sent troops to fight rebel groups in support of the DRC government, yet also to protect their own national interests. Romanian mercenaries have been hired by the Congolese to support the army yet were arrested and transferred to Rwanda, when M23 advanced in the East of the country in  January 2025.

Yet, perhaps more remarkable is the Congolese government’s ‘forum shopping’ whereby its membership of  seven regional organizations (based on its central position in the region), has enabled it to ask for regional ad-hoc coalitions from different organizations. In 2022, it joined the East Africa Community (EAC) and later the same year asked the EAC to deploy a force – the EACRF – to quell violence in the East of the country. Only a year later, it demanded the force to leave, due to its limited results and instead turned to another regional organization: SADC, which deployed a new force as the EACRF left in December 2023. Yet, that force too, ended its mandate in March of 2025 after a month of heavy fatalities in fights with rebel groups. The DRC government had by then used the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO), the FIB, the EACRF, the SAMIDRC and Romanian mercenaries in the fight against rebels, exemplifying the increasingly crowded conflict management space.

That space is also getting crowded by a multiplication of negotiators. The DRC first saw two regional mediation initiatives from the EAC and the AU in 2022: the Nairobi and Luanda processes. While they ran in parallel and sometimes overlapped, they addressed different layers of the conflict with the former focusing on internal and the latter on regional negotiations. In February 2025, during the EAC-SADC Joint Summit the two initiatives merged into a coordinated framework.

Only a month after the merge between the two regional initiatives, in March 2025, Qatar – a new external actor – entered as a mediator between Rwanda and the DRC’s presidents, but also between the Congolese government and M23 rebels, leading to a fragile ceasefire and a draft peace proposal. Another external involvement came a month later in the shape of a Washington-drafted “Declaration of Principles” between DRC and Rwanda with the US administration indicating an appetite for investment in natural resources and closing new deals, while declaring a highly optimistic timeline for peace talks. All similar to the US’ approach in Ukraine. Both new external mediators have thus emphasized economic incentives for the actors involved yet have so far not managed to address the root causes of the crises, which are on local, national and regional levels.

Conclusion

Less than half a year after M23/AFC took over two major cities in the East of the DRC the crisis is still under way despite – or maybe because – of the many different actors involved trying to manage it. While decades-long root causes appear to remain between both Congolese and regional actors, new negotiations, peace deals and cease fires are being drafted by regional and international actors. So far, however they have largely failed to be implemented, much due to the lack of sanctions for non-compliance with the accords and the clash of local, national, regional interests. Similarly, while new DDR processes are being envisioned to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate fighters from the many armed groups in the East of the DRC, they fail to address the fact that the groups’ existence are in response to many more dimensions than just security questions.

Addressing both the internal Congolese and the regional crisis is crucial to move forward. The Congolese churches’ – CENCO-ECC –  joint initiative for a social pact is one important step in the right direction, and a necessary step to begin addressing broader regional questions which tie into, and drive the internal DRC crisis. For that there is a need for both Congolese and regional actors to engage and commit to peace accords tackling the root causes of the conflict while creating a mechanism to ensure its implementation.

(Photo credit: Nina Wilén)