On Dec. 5, 2025, Rwanda and DRC signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity. Since then, Rwanda and its M23 proxy forces have carried on military expansionism and consolidated administration of mineral-rich eastern DRC territories in violation of the accords.
Mere days after the signing of the Accords, Rwandan forces and M23, which was not a party to the peace deal but is under Rwanda’s command and control, seized Uvira, a city in the eastern South Kivu province. They only withdrew on Jan. 17 under US pressure and threats of sanctions on Rwanda.
Meanwhile, M23, with the support of Rwanda, has continued to consolidate a parallel administration of occupied Congolese territories. The group boasts it has improved living conditions, but numerous reports document its economic exploitation, extrajudicial killings, forced recruitment, torture, and other gross human rights abuses.
Last week, hundreds of artisanal miners working under M23’s forced exploitation died in a catastrophic collapse at the Rubaya mine, in a grim reminder of the human cost of the intransigence of Rwanda and M23. Rubaya’s output of the coltan is smuggled through Rwanda and fuels both M23’s finances and Rwanda’s exports of the strategic mineral critical to today’s global economy.
By: Human Rights Foundation based in New York, USA.