Special Report: Ceasefire Complications in the DRC
- Genocide Watch
- 14 minutes ago
- 6 min read
March 2026
By the Great Lakes & Central Africa Task Force
Despite efforts to negotiate a permanent peace agreement to end the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), violence, atrocities, and destruction continue.
Since January 2025, when the Rwanda-backed March 23rd Movement (M23) took over the city of Goma, conditions have only worsened in the eastern regions of the DRC. M23 first formed in 2009, attacking several cities in late 2012. It resurfaced a decade later in 2021, systematically attacking civilians along with committing sexual violence and acts of gang rape in Kishishe and Binza. Before the January 2025 invasion of Goma, M23 had overtaken much of North and South Kivu, steadily expanding their territory.
While the latest atrocities are recent, this conflict is deeply rooted in historical tensions stemming from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and the Congo Wars across the late 1990s. M23 presents itself as a protection force for Congolese Tutsi, raising concerns about escaped genocide perpetrators who fled to the DRC. However, civilian massacres, violent land grabs, and involvement in the highly profitable conflict minerals traderaises additional questions about motivation and intent. Over the course of the past year, this conflict has devastated much of the Eastern DRC, with no stable path towards peace.
On June 27, 2025, an agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was signed in Washington, D.C., to uphold a peace deal which was made in 2024. The United States received mineral rights, and within ninety days, signatories pledged to uphold a ceasefire, withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the DRC, and the implementation of a regional economic integration framework. However, this agreement was broken one month later, when M23, along with the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF), attacked fourteen villages and executed around 140 Hutu civilians in North Kivu province between July 10 and July 30 during a military campaign against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
On July 19, 2025, the DRC and M23 signed the Declaration of Principles, facilitated by the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), in Doha, Qatar. The declaration included support for a ceasefire and measures for the safe return of displaced people. In August, M23 suspended negotiations in Qatar and accused the DRC of breaking the Declaration of Principles by attacking their positions. The DRC denied this allegation.
In October 2025, the DRC criticized the European Union for keeping a 2024 mineral deal with Rwanda amid ongoing atrocities in the DRC. They accused the European Union of double standards: imposing fewer sanctions on Rwanda than on Russia for the war in Ukraine. On November 15, 2025, a peace framework was signed between M23 and the DRC in Qatar. Rwandan troop withdrawal would be contingent on the disbanding of the FDLR.
In early December, Global Witness released a report on the United States and European Union’s joint railway project to transport minerals from the Lobito Corridor in the DRC. It is estimated that between 700 to 1,200 buildings are at risk of demolition, and 3,500 to 6,500 residents are at risk of eviction. These plans, extracting mineral riches at the expense of Congolese civilians, show the underlying motivations behind Western involvement in peace negotiations.
On December 5, 2025, a peace deal was signed between Rwanda and the DRC in Washington, D.C., to finalize the agreement made in June. Amnesty International criticized the deal by saying the peace process had failed to stop ongoing atrocities and hold state actors accountable for their noncompliance. Within a day of the signing, an outbreak of violence was reported in North Kivu and South Kivu. M23 accused Burundi of launching airstrikes which killed 23 people, including civilians, and the DRC accused the RDF and M23 of killing 11 civilians during counterattacks. On December 11, M23, with assistance from Rwandan special forces, captured the city of Uvira in South Kivu, which is on the border between the DRC and Burundi. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused Rwanda of breaking the December 5 peace deal and vowed to hold violators accountable. M23 said it would withdraw from Uvira by December 18, which the DRC claimed was meant to distract the United States from acting against Rwanda. Throughout December, M23 and the RDF killed 1,500 civilians with bombs and drones, and displaced 200,000 people – 84,000 of whom fled to neighboring Burundi.
Quantifying the death toll has been difficult. In February 2025, the M23 offensive on Goma resulted in between 900 and 2,000 deaths. Between July 9-21, 2025, at least 319 civilians were killed by M23 fighters, aided by members of the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) which denies involvement. Over 140 civilians were summerily executed in at least 14 villages near Virunga National Park in July 2025, and during the renewed fighting in December 2025, more than 400 civilians were killed in South Kivu. According to the Congolese government, approximately 1,500 civilians have been killed since early December due to bombs and kamikaze drones linked to Rwandan operations. As of late February 2026, further evidence of large-scale massacres has come to light with the February 27 discovery of two mass graves with 171 bodies on the outskirts of the border city of Uvira. On-the-ground reporting from Genocide Watch’s sources in Goma has found further evidence of mass executions, sharing the discovery of records showing the deaths of 15 prisoners in one day alone. This, combined with the practice of enforced disappearances and the secrecy surrounding the location of prisons, presents an additional concern.
The DRC is also experiencing one of the largest displacement crises in the world. Currently, 7.3 million people are displaced, including 3.7 million children. Additionally, 25.4 million people are food insecure, including 13.2 million children. Earlier in 2025, an estimated 500,000 people, including 260,000 children, fled violence across eastern DRC. With 21 million people in need of urgent assistance and 1 million Congolese seeking refuge abroad, the DRC represents one of the largest humanitarian crises globally.
In Eastern DRC, child recruitment is on the rise. While at least 1,360 children were released from armed groups in Ituri in 2025, 13,000 children remain in armed groups, meaning only about 1 in 10 children gained freedom in 2025. According to the same report, the impacts of this conflict on children are severe, as approximately half of the displaced populations are children under 18. Children report abduction, forced drugging, and exposure to extreme violence. The scale of recruitment, combined with displacement and hunger, significantly increases long-term instability. Furthermore, M23 killed three children in summary executions after overtaking Bukavu in February 2025.
The conflict has further destabilized governance and economic systems in eastern DRC. Since M23 seized Goma on January 27, 2025, all banks have remained closed, leaving the economy largely cash based for over a year. The city of Goma is home to nearly 1.5 million children, now living amid financial paralysis and insecurity. Commodity prices have surged, and hospitals that were overwhelmed by patients injured in the attacks over a year ago are still treating long-term injuries. Despite the severity of atrocities, accountability mechanisms are severely inadequate. In October 2025, a follow-up resolution at the HRC pressed the U.N. Human Rights Office to staff the Commission of Inquiry and ensure a field mission to be carried out by January 2026 at the latest. However, this was significantly delayed due to U.N. funding shortages.
The failure of successive peace agreements in 2025 shows diplomatic arrangements without enforcement mechanisms cannot address the DRC crisis. Despite multiple ceasefire pledges, M23's continued offensives have killed over 1,500 civilians since December alone and displaced hundreds of thousands more, exposing deep weaknesses in international mediation. Each agreement, from the June Washington deal to the November Qatarframework, has collapsed not from lack of diplomacy, but from lack of consequence. Rwanda has faced no meaningful accountability for its documented support of M23, and the international community has largely allowedmineral interests to take precedence over civilian protection. The double standard the DRC raised, where Western powers maintain mineral agreements with Rwanda while applying far less pressure than they did in response to Ukraine, reflects a broader pattern that when economic interests are at stake, human rights commitments bend. Accountability mechanisms are also eroding at the moment they are needed most, as U.N. funding shortagesdelay investigations and weaken protection mandates. Children remain in armed groups, families continue to be displaced, and the eastern DRC remains in a state of compounding crisis. Until the international community imposes real consequences on those responsible and addresses the root causes driving conflict, peace agreements will remain gestures which fail to protect affected communities.
