Rwanda-backed M23 militia massacres 300 in DR Congo
- Katharine Houreld | The Washington Post
- 21 minutes ago
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After Trump-backed peace deal, survivors recount M23 massacre in Eastern Congo
The Washington Post
August 20, 2025
Rwandan-backed M23 rebels killed scores of civilians this month in eastern Congo, survivors recounted, just weeks after a peace deal hailed by the White House.
An armed M23 fighter stands near civilians in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 24. (Jospin Mwisha/AFP/Getty Images)
Rwandan-backed fighters from the M23 rebel group killed scores of civilians last month in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to survivors, undermining a new American push to resolve one of the world’s most complex and intractable conflicts.
The violence exploded about two weeks after President Donald Trump said he had brokered a peace deal between Rwanda and Congo, which have long supported an array of militias and proxy forces in Congo’s mineral-rich east. “We just ended a war that was going on for 30 years,” Trump said in the Oval Office on June 27, flanked by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers.
But in a report out Wednesday, based on interviews with two dozen witnesses, Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that M23 “summarily executed over 140 largely ethnic Hutu civilians in at least 14 villages and small farming communities” in mid-July, and that the death toll could exceed 300, ranking “among the worst atrocities” by the rebel group in years.
The Washington Post interviewed three witnesses to the initial massacre, as well as six residents of the nearest town, and reviewed photographs and videos from the aftermath. Locals described farmers being gunned down indiscriminately by M23 fighters as they worked the fields and survivors hiding for days among the dead. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, communicating by voice notes on borrowed phones, out of fear for their safety.
Rwanda has always denied backing M23 — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary from U.N. experts — and the rebels were not signatories to the U.S.-backed peace deal. M23 representatives and the government of Congo signed an agreement on July 19 pledging to establish a ceasefire as part of a separate peace process mediated by Qatar, though M23 told the BBC on Monday it was pulling out of the Doha-based talks, saying Kinshasa had reneged on the deal.
President Donald Trump announces a peace agreement with the Rwandan and Congolese foreign ministers in the Oval Office on June 27. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)
It was not immediately clear how the killings would affect the U.S.-backed peace deal. Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on an armed group opposed to M23, as well as Chinese and Congolese mining companies it said were fueling the region’s illicit mineral trade. The announcement noted that the “Rwanda-backed” M23 group “has rapidly expanded its territorial control in eastern DRC and is responsible for human rights abuses.”
U.S. officials, however, have made no public comment about the recent killings and the president claimed again on Monday to have “settled 6 wars in 6 months,” a count that includes the conflict in Congo. “It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last month.
Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior Africa adviser, said in statement to The Post that “we will continue to work through any challenges to ensure that 30 years of war come to an end, and people can live in peace.” The White House press office said Trump had secured a “historic agreement” between Rwanda and Congo and that his administration would ensure that all sides “honor their commitments.”
In an Aug. 7 post on X, Congo’s ministry of information said M23 had killed more than 300 civilians in the North Kivu region; M23 swiftly denied any role in the killings and dismissed what it called “false accusations.”
In an interview with The Post, Congolese Information Minister Patrick Muyaya called for an international investigation: “Any kind of violence must be condemned by the U.S.,” he said, urging American officials to “continue to put pressure so we can fully implement the Washington accord and get Rwandan troops out of DRC.”
Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said the country’s forces had “absolutely nothing to do” with the latest violence, adding that M23 is not “Rwandan-controlled.”
Lawrence Kanyuka, the M23 spokesman targeted with sanctions by the U.S. government in February, did not respond to a request for comment.
Bonfires burn during a protest by families of Congo soldiers who died during clashes with M23 rebels, in Beni, Congo, on July 14. (Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters)
Kigali accuses Congo of supporting the remnants of ethnic Hutu militias responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Congo accuses Rwanda of using proxy forces, including M23, to terrorize Hutu communities and loot the country’s vast but underdeveloped mineral reserves.
In January, M23 fighters seized control of the regional capital of Goma in a lightning offensive and have taken more Congolese territory in recent months, including the area where the July killings took place. Support from the Rwandan Defense Forces “played a critical role in the territorial expansion of [M23] and its occupation of new territories,” a report by a U.N. panel of experts found last month.
The latest massacres happened near Binza, about 65 miles north of Goma, in mid-July, but information has been slow to trickle out because phone networks are unreliable and locals fear further reprisals from M23.
Residents and survivors told The Post that the violence originated with clashes between M23, which controls the town, and the Wazalendo, a loose array of local militias often supported by the Congolese government. After losing a skirmish, M23 fighters turned against civilians working in the fields of Binza on July 13, three survivors said.
A man told The Post he began to run as soon as he heard the first shots, tripping on a body as he fled. Many victims came from different villages, he said, and his brother was still missing.
“I saw many dead people on the way home,” he said. He estimated at least 50 people were killed that day. The Post could not independently verify the toll. Terrified residents told him “the M23 were killing anyone they found,” the man said.
A woman who escaped the initial massacre said she spent three days hiding among corpses with no food or water. When she finally made her way back to the town of Nyamilima, she said, she walked past at least 20 bodies.
“It was the M23,” she told The Post. “People were massacred … and until now they have not been buried.”
A second woman who survived said she knew it was the M23 because their fighters controlled the area and had a jeep waiting for them. The Wazalendo don’t use vehicles, she said.
Congolese military helmets are abandoned at the Goma airport after the town was seized by the M23 rebels, in Goma, in March. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)
In one video from the aftermath, the bodies of two men and a woman in a yellow skirt are seen with flies buzzing around deep machete wounds. An unidentified narrator said it was filmed on July 15 in Busesa, an agricultural area outside Binza. In another video, five decapitated male bodies, some with their hands bound behind their backs, lay near a pile of heads. A blindfold is visible on one of them.
The victims “were all farmers in the field who were surprised by M23,” the second woman said. “I saw three people shot dead on the spot.”
One farmer told HRW he saw his wife and their three children — ranging from 9 months to 10 years old — shot dead by rebels. A woman, who said her husband was killed in front of her with a machete, recounted being marched to the Rutshuru River with around 70 people, including children. Fighters executed people on the banks of the river, she said, but she fell in without being shot. The killings continued for several days, according to HRW.
A Binza resident told The Post she attended a public meeting held by an M23 official in the nearby town of Nyamilima on July 22 where the local commander, whom she identified as Mr. Hatimana, acknowledged the killings but claimed the victims were Wazalendo fighters.
Families said they have been unable to publicly mourn their loved ones because they fear M23 retaliation. Many of those wounded in the attack were too afraid to receive treatment, according to a medical professional in Binza.
One resident said he knew of at least seven small villages that reported people missing after the killings, but relatives were still barred from traveling to the area where they were last seen. M23 has now prohibited locals from farming on pain of death, three residents said.
“We will starve if we cannot go to the fields,” one said.
Jubilé Kahsay contributed to this report.
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