Who are the M23 Rebels in eastern DRC?

The M23 movement traces back to a 2009 peace deal in which Congolese Tutsi rebels agreed to disarm in exchange for political and military integration that never fully materialized, prompting a 2012 revolt named for the broken agreement's signing date. Defeated by Congolese forces and UN peacekeepers in 2013, the group resurfaced in 2022 with what UN experts describe as continued Rwandan backing, a claim Kigali denies as consistently as Kinshasa repeats it.

By early 2025 the rebellion had escalated well beyond its original territory, with M23 forces seizing Goma and Bukavu, the provincial capitals of North and South Kivu. The UN now counts more than seven million internally displaced people, even as Rwanda maintains its now-familiar posture of official noninvolvement.

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