The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday published a report accusing all parties to the messy civil war in the Congo of “violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
“Since late 2024, gross human rights violations have been committed by the M23, supported by the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), as well as the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) and affiliated armed groups,” OHCHR said.
M23 is among the largest and most dangerous of the hundred-plus armed factions fighting for control of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC government has long accused its neighbor and rival Rwanda of sponsoring M23 in a bid to destabilize the country and gain control of valuable mineral deposits in the east.
Rwandan sponsorship of M23 is no longer secret, especially after Rwandan troops were spotted helping M23 fighters take control of Congolese cities. The European Union (EU) announced sanctions against three Rwandan military commanders in March for their ties to M23.
FARDC is the DRC military. Although it outnumbers the M23 insurgents on paper, even with support from the Rwandan military, FARDC has been struggling to push the insurgents out of the territory they captured over the past year.
President Donald Trump brokered a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda in June. The deal reportedly included DRC mineral concessions to the United States.
“For 35 years, it was a vicious war. Nine million people were killed with machetes. I stopped it,” Trump said in August. “I got it stopped and saved lots of lives.”
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Peace does not flourish easily on the battered soil of the eastern Congo, and residents of the area say the fighting continues, including attacks by M23. The final version of a peace deal between the DRC government and M23 stalled out because each side accused the other of violating their tenuous ceasefire agreement.
According to the U.N. human rights office, its fact-finding mission (FFM) to the eastern Congo found abuses on all sides, including a distinct lack of protection for civilians caught in the conflict.
The report was tough on M23 and its Rwandan sponsors, blasting the insurgents for waging “a campaign of intimidation and violent repression through a recurrent pattern of summary executions, torture, detention, enforced disappearances and forced recruitment.”
That “forced recruitment” included children, who were captured by the hundreds and forced to become child soldiers for M23.
“M23 members also systematically carried out widespread sexual violence, mainly in the form of gang rape, and other forms of sexual violence, including sexual slavery. Women and girls were disproportionately targeted, but men, boys, and LGBT individuals were also victims of sexual violence, including in detention,” OHCR added.
“Rapes were repeated over prolonged periods, often in conjunction with additional acts of physical and psychological torture and other ill-treatment, with a manifest intent to degrade, punish, and break the dignity of victims,” the report said.
The U.N. office noted that M23’s near-daily murders, rapes, torture, imprisonment, enslavement, and “forcible transfer of population” could all be classified as crimes against humanity.
As for the FARDC, the U.N. mission “identified a pattern of widespread use of sexual violence, mainly rape and gang rape against women and girls, and looting by members of FARDC and Wazalendo during their retreat from the frontlines” in early 2025.
Wazalendo is a loosely organized irregular militia group whose name translates to “patriots.” As the FARDC proved ineffective at controlling insurgent violence over the past two decades, the DRC government increasingly turned to such proxy forces to help it fight M23.
The OHCHR report also accused Wazalendo groups of recruiting child soldiers and abusing female children for “sexual purposes.” The report blasted both the DRC and Rwanda for using proxy forces that were prone to human rights abuses.
“The atrocities described in this report are horrific,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Friday.
“It is heartbreaking and deeply frustrating to witness, once again, the dehumanization of the civilian population by those in power who are failing in their responsibilities,” he said.
“It is imperative to promptly and independently investigate all allegations of violations with a view to ensuring accountability and victims’ right to truth, justice and reparations, especially guarantees of non-repetition,” he urged.
Meanwhile, Congolese farmers returning to their land in the eastern Congo from refugee camps are reportedly discovering their fields have been seized and occupied by M23 and its allies, and even by Rwandans who crossed the border to take up residence on their land and loot their homes.
Reuters on Friday cited unpublished U.N. documents that said hundreds of conflicting ownership claims have been filed with M23, which still controls much of the eastern Congo. The insurgents created a special “arbitration center” to handle the claims.
M23 also made a show of dismantling refugee camps to demonstrate that it can govern its territory effectively, which means displaced farmers have nowhere to go. Since the M23 arbitration center often takes months to resolve land claims, the displaced Congolese farmers say they are losing entire harvests. The arbitration center sometimes tells the returning farmers that they must “share” their land with whoever has decided to occupy it.
Although the Rwandan government continues to deny it invaded or occupied territory in the DRC, insisting that its military was deployed in a purely defensive capacity along its border, Reuters had no difficulty finding Rwandan nationals who cheerfully admitted they were squatting on Congolese land.
“This field belongs to a Congolese citizen. I don’t even know his name. I occupied it by planting potatoes there. I’m Rwandan, I only occupied this field to survive,” a woman tilling a farm in the DRC told reporters.
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