# Eastern DR Congo / M23 War
- Canonical dossier: [Web edition]()
- Markdown edition: [Plain-text edition]()
- Issue: Issue 006
- Rubric: Proxy War / Too Many Tables
- Byline: Totally Fine Foundation editorial desk
- Reading time: 11 min
- Last reviewed: 2026-08-18
> In its fifth year the M23 war is measured in ledgers that must never be added — displaced kept apart from returned, refugees apart from the hungry, a civilian toll apart from a military one. Two things the independent record does state, each in careful wording: the UN names Rwanda's forces behind M23, and a UN mission finds all sides did harm.
## Cover
- Kicker: Field dossier / Africa / active war
- Cover lines: The appeal was cut by nearly half. The need it costs did not fall. / IDPs, refugees, returnees, the hungry — four counts, never one. / The UN says Rwanda 'directs and effectively controls' M23. Rwanda says no. / One UN mission, one ledger — and the state's own army is in it.
#### Hero visual provenance
- Caption: Goma, the North Kivu capital and focal city of the 2025 offensive, in an archival aerial view. The city of some two million fell to Rwanda-backed M23 on 27 January 2025.
- Alt text: Aerial view of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Credit: MONUSCO Photos, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 2.0
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Metrics
### 14.9M — People in humanitarian need (national, 2026)
- Category: humanitarian need
- Caveat: OCHA planning figure; fell from 21.2M on a change of method, not improvement. A rolling dashboard figure across all shocks, not M23 alone.
**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Democratic Republic of the Congo — 2026 appeal and situation reports]() (`drc-ocha-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The ask was cut; the need was not.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the appeal cut.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### 5.65M — Internally displaced, four eastern provinces
- Category: displacement / IDPs
- Caveat: IOM DTM (Nov 2025–Feb 2026): NK 2,561,136; SK 1,395,604; Ituri 1,360,577; Tanganyika 330,148. 87% cite armed-group attacks; a returnee count is separate, never subtracted.
**Source trail:** [IOM — DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)]() (`drc-iom-dtm-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Counted by province, never summed with the rest.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: displacement by province.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### 1.25M — Cross-border refugees (kept apart from IDPs)
- Category: displacement / refugees
- Caveat: Congolese refugees and asylum-seekers regionally, 30 Apr 2026 (Uganda hosts 657,223); a distinct population from the ~5.77M displaced inside the DRC — never summed.
**Source trail:** [UNHCR — DR Congo emergency — refugees, asylum-seekers and internal displacement]() (`drc-unhcr-2026`)
### 24.8M — Acute food insecurity (IPC)
- Category: food security
- Caveat: Phase 3+ snapshot Sep–Dec 2025 (3.2M in Emergency); a heavier ~26.5M projection for Jan–Jun 2026. Snapshot ≠ projection; IPC severity tiers, not a death count.
**Source trail:** [IOM — DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)]() (`drc-iom-dtm-2026`)
### 14,000–18,000 — Rwanda's role, per the UN Group of Experts
- Category: attribution / assessment
- Caveat: RDF troops estimated deployed as of late Dec 2025 (revised up from 6,000–7,000). 'De facto direction and effective control' renders Rwanda 'liable'; its own estimate/assessment, which Rwanda rejects.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: At the wording the UN chose. Rwanda denies it.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: Rwanda's role.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### 2,500+ — Reported conflict fatalities, Q1 2025
- Category: human cost / reported
- Caveat: ACLED conservative reported estimate across all armed groups — the deadliest quarter since 2002. Not M23 alone (a separate 450 belongs to the ADF); no full-year toll published.
**Source trail:** [ACLED — DRC / M23 — political-violence event data]() (`drc-acled-2025`)
## The war with too many peace tables.
### A war costed at a billion four, and cut
OCHA writes the M23 war down as an accounting problem. Its 2026 plan counts 14.9 million people in humanitarian need, asks US$1.4 billion to answer it, and admits it can fund a response for only 7.3 million — down from the 11 million it prioritised the year before. The cut did not follow any easing on the ground: OCHA is explicit that the need fell from 21.2 million to 14.9 million on a change of method, not improvement, and that the narrowed target is a funding decision, not a smaller crisis.
By late June the appeal sat about 53 per cent covered, a US$655.8 million gap still open — a live figure that moves as contributions arrive. Underneath the arithmetic runs the friction its field reports record: convoys held up at gunpoint, a needs-assessment team taking ten hours to cover 22 kilometres of mud, and access OCHA calls more dangerous and more complex than ever. The measurements are authoritative, but they are also appeals — OCHA reports needs and its own access, and names no belligerent's guilt.
**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Democratic Republic of the Congo — 2026 appeal and situation reports]() (`drc-ocha-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: A funding decision, not a smaller crisis.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the appeal cut.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Four ways to count the uprooted
The people the war moved are counted in registers that must never be summed. UNHCR keeps two of them deliberately apart: 1,247,610 Congolese registered as refugees and asylum-seekers across the region as of 30 April 2026 — more than half in Uganda — against 5,773,180 displaced inside the country, dated 31 March. IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix draws the internal map larger still: 5,647,465 displaced across the four eastern provinces, with armed-group attacks the cause 87 per cent of host-family IDPs cite.
A separate column, never subtracted from the first, tracks return: OCHA logs 2.32 million returnees in North Kivu alongside that province's displaced. Return is not resolution — IOM notes many go back to destroyed or occupied homes and face re-displacement. Every one of these numbers sits on a live dashboard, leans partly on host-government registration, and carries its own as-of date; combining them into one dramatic total would misrepresent the data.
The May 2026 assessment reported more than 9,000 displaced people in Kamango, North Kivu, as of May 2026. The assessment described the zone as moving toward hotspot status because needs were increasing while significant response gaps persisted.
**Source trail:** [UNHCR — DR Congo emergency — refugees, asylum-seekers and internal displacement]() (`drc-unhcr-2026`); [IOM — DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)]() (`drc-iom-dtm-2026`); [UN OCHA — Democratic Republic of the Congo — 2026 appeal and situation reports]() (`drc-ocha-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Distinct populations, distinct dates, never added.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: refugees against IDPs.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### The proxy, named — in the words the UN chose
The attribution most readers reach for is left to the bodies entitled to make it, and reported in their exact wording. The UN Group of Experts found that Rwanda held de facto control and direction over M23 operations, with every M23 unit supervised and supported by RDF special forces, and 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops in North Kivu in its late-2024 report. Its December 2025 midterm estimated 6,000 to 7,000; a newer report revises the current estimate sharply upward, to between 14,000 and 18,000 Rwandan soldiers across the two Kivus as of late December 2025.
The Group's legal finding is stated conditionally and is its own assessment, not a court's: RDF's de facto direction and effective control render Rwanda liable for the actions of AFC/M23, and Rwanda's direct use of armed force against the DRC may constitute an act of aggression. The Security Council echoed the frame, citing the M23 offensive quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition. Rwanda denies all of it, casting any presence as self-defence against the FDLR. The dossier records the findings at the wording their authors chose — decisive support and de facto control, not a flat 'Rwandan army,' and not its own verdict.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`); [UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) — MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown]() (`drc-monusco-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Decisive support and de facto control — the UN's words.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: Rwanda's role.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### All parties, one ledger
The atrocity record refuses the single villain, and the source that most refuses it is the UN's own. Between January and July 2025 the Human Rights Office Fact-Finding Mission found quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition — murder, torture, rape and sexual slavery — and that M23 may have committed crimes against humanity. It logged at least 319 civilians killed by M23 in Rutshuru over thirteen days in July. In the same report, at the same standard, it found the Congolese army and its allied Wazalendo militias committed war crimes of their own, and that certain Wazalendo conscripted or enlisted children under 15.
On sexual violence the mission kept its streams separate — over 1,000 victims logged in South Kivu, attributed to retreating government-aligned forces. On Rwanda it stayed clinical, finding it responsible for violations directly committed by its armed forces, with credible allegations of covert RDF presence within M23. These are findings at the 'reasonable grounds to believe' threshold — allegations warranting a Commission of Inquiry, not adjudicated guilt — and they name the state's own soldiers alongside the rebels. Both axes are on the page. Neither is the whole page.
**Source trail:** [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`); [Human Rights Watch — Eastern DRC abuse documentation — Uvira, the camps, and the other axis]() (`drc-hrw-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The state's own army is in the ledger.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: all parties named.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### How the peace tables multiplied
The diplomacy has fragmented faster than the front lines, and the offensives kept taking ground as the ink dried. The DRC and Rwanda signed a US- and Qatar-mediated agreement in Washington on 27 June 2025, the presidents following on 4 December; M23, not a party to it, signed a separate Doha declaration with Kinshasa on 19 July. Neither track stopped the war. ACLED reads the same period as a march of falling cities — Goma besieged in January, Bukavu in February, Uvira in December — each attributed to a Rwanda-backed M23, and its first quarter alone recorded over 2,500 reported fatalities, the deadliest quarter since 2002.
MONUSCO, meanwhile, sits on the clock: the Security Council renewed its mandate to December 2026 at an authorised ceiling of 11,500 troops, then paused the mission's own withdrawal. The regional forces sent to contain M23 are judged by analysts to have failed; the SADC mission began withdrawing after Goma fell and fourteen of its South African peacekeepers were killed. Where minerals appear, they appear as the sources frame them — a documented economic stake and an accelerant, not a proven sole cause. This dossier issues no ruling on blame; what it can state is attributed to whoever established it.
**Source trail:** [ACLED — DRC / M23 — political-violence event data]() (`drc-acled-2025`); [UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) — MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown]() (`drc-monusco-2026`); [International Crisis Group — The M23 Offensive: Elusive Peace in the Great Lakes (Africa Report N°320)]() (`drc-icg-framing`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: More mediators than ceasefires.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the peace tracks.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Humanitarian access and response gaps
The May 2026 assessment described worsening humanitarian access constraints in Lulingu, South Kivu, with the area moving toward hotspot status amid high levels of need and gaps in lifesaving response. In Ituri, the assessment described Lolwa and Mongbalu as being in a critical situation and moving toward hotspot status, and as affected by gaps in lifesaving and frontline response.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
## Actors and positions
### M23 / AFC (Alliance Fleuve Congo)
- Role: The armed movement, backed by Rwanda, that seized Goma, Bukavu and Uvira in 2025.
- Confidence: high
- Position: Presents itself as an indigenous Congolese movement defending Congolese Tutsi against persecution and the FDLR, and protesting Kinshasa's failure to honour past peace deals; frames its advance as liberation.
- Supporter framing: Casts its campaign as defence of a persecuted community and a response to broken agreements.
- Opposing account: Kinshasa and UN investigators describe a Rwandan-directed proxy force; the UN found it committed war crimes.
- Independent assessment: The UN Group of Experts found Rwanda holds de facto control and direction over M23, every unit supervised and supported by RDF special forces — undercutting the 'purely indigenous' framing while not erasing real local grievances over citizenship, land and anti-Tutsi violence that predate the movement.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
### DRC government / FARDC
- Role: The Congolese state and its armed forces, defending against the M23 offensive.
- Confidence: high
- Position: Frames the war as external aggression by Rwanda through M23; defends sovereignty and has filed cases at the ICJ, the East African Court of Justice and the African Court.
- Supporter framing: Presents the fight as a defence of Congolese sovereignty against foreign aggression.
- Opposing account: The UN mission found FARDC and allied forces themselves committed rape, killings and looting; independent reporting substantiates FARDC–FDLR cooperation, which Kinshasa disputes.
- Independent assessment: The 'defence only' framing is not sustained by the evidence: the Fact-Finding Mission documented war crimes by the army and its Wazalendo allies at the same standard it applied to M23, and Wazalendo recruitment of children under 15.
**Source trail:** [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`)
### Rwanda (government / RDF)
- Role: The neighbouring state the UN names as directing and controlling M23.
- Confidence: high
- Position: Denies backing M23 and being a party to the war; justifies any military presence as self-defence against the FDLR and accuses Kinshasa of arming it.
- Supporter framing: Frames its security concern about the FDLR — a militia formed from remnants of the 1994 genocide — as legitimate self-defence.
- Opposing account: The UN Group of Experts, the Security Council, the US and France hold that Rwanda provides troops, weapons and command.
- Independent assessment: The Group's finding is of decisive support and de facto control — its own assessment at that exact wording — rendering Rwanda 'liable,' with force that 'may constitute an act of aggression.' Its FDLR concern is real but, per the experts, does not account for the scale of the intervention. Rwanda rejects the finding.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
### Civilians of North & South Kivu and Ituri
- Role: The population bearing the direct human cost — killed, displaced and subjected to sexual violence by multiple armed actors.
- Confidence: high
- Position: Communities seek safety, return and protection; some Congolese Tutsi cite genuine persecution, others fear M23 rule and reprisals.
- Supporter framing: Humanitarian actors emphasise civilian protection ahead of any belligerent's narrative.
- Opposing account: Each armed actor casts civilian harm as the other side's doing.
- Independent assessment: The DTM records 5,647,465 IDPs across the four eastern provinces; the Fact-Finding Mission documented systematic sexual violence by M23 and rape and looting by FARDC-allied Wazalendo — civilians as victims of, not protected by, the belligerents. The side with the heaviest documented human cost, not an equal-sided dispute.
**Source trail:** [IOM — DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)]() (`drc-iom-dtm-2026`); [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`)
### MONUSCO and regional forces
- Role: The UN and regional military presence meant to contain M23.
- Confidence: medium
- Position: MONUSCO frames its mandate as protecting civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.
- Supporter framing: Presents its role as civilian protection and stabilisation.
- Opposing account: Analysts and the fall of Goma suggest the regional interventions failed to contain M23.
- Independent assessment: The Security Council renewed MONUSCO to December 2026 at an 11,500-troop ceiling, then paused its own drawdown; the SADC mission began withdrawing after Goma fell and fourteen South African peacekeepers were killed. The protection framing is the mission's position, not an independent verdict on whether it holds.
**Source trail:** [UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) — MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown]() (`drc-monusco-2026`)
## Claims and evidence
### M23 is an indigenous Congolese protection force acting on its own, not a foreign proxy.
- Claimant: M23 / AFC
- Evidence status: disputed
- Counterclaim: The UN Group of Experts found Rwanda exercised de facto control and direction over M23, every unit supervised and supported by RDF special forces.
- Independent assessment: Disputed: local grievances are real and predate the movement, but the evidence of decisive external control contradicts the 'independent indigenous force' claim. Use the exact expert wording; do not overstate into a flat 'Rwandan army.'
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
### FARDC and its allied forces only defend civilians; abuses are the rebels' doing.
- Claimant: DRC government / FARDC
- Evidence status: disputed
- Counterclaim: The UN Fact-Finding Mission concluded all parties committed serious violations possibly amounting to war crimes.
- Independent assessment: Disputed: the mission documented rape, murder of civilians and looting by government-affiliated forces, systematic sexual violence during the early-2025 retreat, and Wazalendo recruitment of children under 15. Culpability is shared, though this does not equate the parties' overall conduct.
**Source trail:** [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Culpability is shared, at the mission's standard.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: all parties named.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### The eastern DRC crisis is primarily a mineral war.
- Claimant: Common single-cause framing
- Evidence status: likely
- Counterclaim: Minerals are a documented factor — coltan smuggled monthly to Rwanda, M23 taxing the trade — but analysts caution resource control is one factor among many.
- Independent assessment: Likely partial: the Group documents AFC/M23 control of nearly half of South Kivu's cassiterite and coltan and over two-thirds of its wolframite, a real economic stake. But citizenship, ethnicity, land, Rwandan security concerns and state weakness all bear on it — a factor and accelerant, not a proven sole cause.
**Source trail:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`); [International Crisis Group — The M23 Offensive: Elusive Peace in the Great Lakes (Africa Report N°320)]() (`drc-icg-framing`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: A documented stake and accelerant — not a proven sole cause.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: mineral control.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### M23 deliberately executed civilians in Goma in February 2025, amounting to war crimes.
- Claimant: Human Rights Watch
- Evidence status: confirmed
- Counterclaim: M23 disputes deliberate targeting of civilians.
- Independent assessment: Confirmed at the documented scale: HRW documented at least 21 civilians and most likely many more summarily executed on 22–23 February 2025 (13 identities verified with head or chest gunshot wounds), concluding the wounds and absence of fighting indicate deliberate execution — described as war crimes, with Rwanda possibly complicit. Broader offensive totals are separate from these documented executions.
**Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Eastern DRC abuse documentation — Uvira, the camps, and the other axis]() (`drc-hrw-2026`)
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Documented floors, not tolls.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: HRW documentation.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Language record
### UN Group of Experts on the DRC
- Role: Security Council investigative panel
- Context: On Rwanda's role; the panel's own assessment, which Rwanda rejects.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report]() (`drc-goe-2025`)
### UN Fact-Finding Mission
- Role: OHCHR / North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)
- Context: The mission's standard of proof — an allegation warranting a Commission of Inquiry, not a verdict.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`)
### UN Fact-Finding Mission
- Role: OHCHR, on government forces
- Context: Naming the state's own army and its Wazalendo allies at the same standard as M23.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)]() (`drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`)
### Human Rights Watch
- Role: On the occupation of Uvira
- Context: From HRW's May 2026 file on the twelve-week occupation of Uvira; a documented floor.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [Human Rights Watch — Eastern DRC abuse documentation — Uvira, the camps, and the other axis]() (`drc-hrw-2026`)
### ACLED
- Role: Great Lakes conflict monitor
- Context: On over 2,500 reported fatalities across all armed groups in Q1 2025.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [ACLED — DRC / M23 — political-violence event data]() (`drc-acled-2025`)
### UN Security Council
- Role: MONUSCO mandate renewal (Resolution 2808)
- Context: The Council's own characterisation of the M23 offensive, contested by Rwanda.
Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.
**Source:** [UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) — MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown]() (`drc-monusco-2026`)
## Timeline
### 2022-11-15 — M23 resumes offensive; captures Kiwanja and Rutshuru
- Event type: conflict\_escalation
- Confidence: high
M23 rebels relaunched military operations in North Kivu, capturing key towns and advancing on Goma. The UN Group of Experts found evidence of Rwandan military support for M23.
**Source trail:** [ACLED — DRC — ACLED Event Tracker]() (`src-drc-acled`)
### 2025-01-27 — M23 captures Goma, largest city in eastern DRC
- Event type: conflict\_escalation
- Confidence: high
M23 forces captured Goma, the largest city in eastern DRC and a major humanitarian hub, after DRC army and SADC peacekeeping forces withdrew. The fall of Goma marked a major escalation of the conflict and triggered mass displacement.
**Source trail:** [UNOCHA — DRC Humanitarian Situation — UNOCHA]() (`src-drc-ocha`); [ACLED — DRC — ACLED Event Tracker]() (`src-drc-acled`)
### 2026-05-05 — SADC withdrawal continues; fresh displacement in South Kivu
- Event type: humanitarian\_access
- Confidence: high
SADC peacekeeping forces continue their withdrawal from Goma under M23 pressure. OCHA reported new displacement of approximately 200,000 people south of Bukavu following renewed fighting.
**Source trail:** [UNOCHA — DRC Humanitarian Situation — UNOCHA]() (`src-drc-ocha`); [ReliefWeb — DRC Crisis — ReliefWeb]() (`src-drc-reliefweb`)
### 2026-05-31 — Kamango reported over 9,000 displaced and described as moving toward hotspot status
- Event type: displacement\_update
- Confidence: medium
The May 2026 assessment reported more than 9,000 displaced people in Kamango, North Kivu, as of May 2026, and described the zone as moving toward hotspot status because needs were increasing while significant response gaps persisted.
**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-drc-m23-conf-editorial-2026-08`)
### 2026-05-31 — Lulingu access constraints described as worsening, zone moving toward hotspot
- Event type: humanitarian\_access
- Confidence: medium
The May 2026 assessment described worsening humanitarian access constraints in Lulingu, South Kivu, with the area moving toward hotspot status amid high needs and gaps in lifesaving response.
**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-drc-m23-conf-editorial-2026-08`)
### 2026-05-31 — Lolwa and Mongbalu in Ituri described as critical and moving toward hotspot
- Event type: humanitarian\_access
- Confidence: medium
The May 2026 assessment described Lolwa and Mongbalu in Ituri as being in a critical situation and moving toward hotspot status, and as affected by gaps in lifesaving and frontline response.
**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-drc-m23-conf-editorial-2026-08`)
## Visual essay
### Gallery image 01
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: MONUSCO frames its mandate as protecting civilians 'under imminent threat'; analysts judge the regional forces sent to contain M23 to have failed.
- Alt text: MONUSCO peacekeepers on a protection patrol in eastern DR Congo.
- Credit: MONUSCO Photos, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 2.0
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Gallery image 02
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Across the four eastern provinces IOM counts more than 5.6 million internally displaced — a figure kept strictly apart from refugees, returnees and the hungry.
- Alt text: Displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Credit: MONUSCO Photos, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 2.0
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Linked visual references
### Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)
- Photographer: UN Human Rights Office
- Publisher: OHCHR
- Recognition: UN Human Rights Council mandate
- Why it matters: The UN fact-finding record that names every armed actor in the war — M23, Rwandan soldiers, and the Congolese army's own allied militias — at a single standard of proof.
- Original: [Open reference]()
#### One ledger, and the state's own army is in it.
The Fact-Finding Mission refuses the single villain. It found reasonable grounds to believe all parties committed acts that may amount to war crimes — and kept its sexual-violence and Rwanda findings in careful, separate lanes.
The reference matters because it is the source that most resists a clean story: it names M23 and, in some cases, Rwandan soldiers, and in the same report, at the same standard, the Congolese army and its Wazalendo allies.
These are findings at the 'reasonable grounds to believe' threshold — allegations warranting a Commission of Inquiry, not adjudicated guilt. This dossier carries them as such: attributed, hedged, and never collapsed into a verdict.
## Media desk
### North Kivu province — locator
- Publisher: Wikimedia Commons
- Creator: Wikimedia Commons contributors
- Date: Maintained file
- Media type: map
- Rights mode: direct\_image
- Placement: Orientation map / geography
- Caption: The war is fought across four eastern provinces — North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika — but North Kivu, with Goma, is its centre of gravity.
- Why it matters: A rights-safe locator that orients the place names without asserting any front line — geography, not battlefield control.
The map belongs early because the war is intensely local: cities fall one by one — Goma, Bukavu, Uvira — and the displacement figures cluster by province. Orientation first, then the ledgers.
- Original: [Open media record]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: North Kivu, the province at the centre of the war: home to Goma, and to more internally displaced people than any other in the country.
- Alt text: Map locating North Kivu province within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Credit: Profoss / Uwe Dedering
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Rwanda's role, in the words the UN chose
- Publisher: UN Group of Experts on the DRC
- Creator: Totally Fine Foundation
- Date: 2025
- Media type: infographic
- Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only
- Placement: Attribution data surface
- Caption: The single attribution most readers reach for, kept at the wording its authors chose: decisive support and de facto control, not a flat 'Rwandan army,' and not the magazine's own verdict.
- Why it matters: The Group of Experts is the Security Council's own investigative panel; its finding is an attributed assessment, hedged and contested, not a court ruling.
The surface exists to hold the phrasing steady. The Group finds Rwanda 'liable' and its use of force 'may constitute an act of aggression' — its own legal assessment. Rwanda rejects all of it, and the dossier records both.
- Original: [Open media record]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The attribution at the UN's exact wording: 'de facto direction and effective control' over M23, and an estimated 14,000–18,000 Rwandan troops deployed as of late December 2025. Rwanda denies it.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the UN Group of Experts' estimate of 14,000–18,000 Rwandan troops and its 'de facto control' finding.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Source readings
### The proxy, named — in the words the UN chose.
- Registry ID: `drc-goe-2025`
- Publisher: United Nations Security Council
- Source type: primary\_document
- Published: 2025-12-30
- Registry title: UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report
- Editorial note: Rwanda's role written as evidence, not accusation — at the panel's exact wording.
- Original: [Open source]()
The Security Council's own investigators found Rwanda holds de facto control and direction over M23 — and reported it as evidence, hedged and precise.
The Group of Experts found that every M23 unit was supervised and supported by RDF special forces, with 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops in North Kivu in its late-2024 report. Its December 2025 midterm estimated 6,000 to 7,000; a newer report surfacing in early July 2026 revises the current estimate sharply upward, to between 14,000 and 18,000 Rwandan soldiers across the two Kivus as of late December 2025.
Its legal finding is stated conditionally and is its own assessment, not a court's: RDF's de facto direction and effective control over M23 operations render Rwanda liable for the actions of AFC/M23, and Rwanda's direct use of armed force against the DRC may constitute an act of aggression. Rwanda denies backing M23 and casts any presence as self-defence against the FDLR.
#### Takeaways
- The current estimate is 14,000–18,000 (the midterm's 6,000–7,000 is superseded); troop figures are the panel's estimates, not headcounts.
- Hold the wording exactly — 'de facto direction and effective control,' 'liable,' 'may constitute an act of aggression' — never tightened to a flat 'Rwandan army.'
- Minerals are a documented objective, not a sole cause; casualty numbers in the report are hedged.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The panel's estimate and finding, at the wording it chose — which Rwanda rejects.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 14,000–18,000 Rwandan troops; 'de facto direction and effective control'.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### All parties, one ledger.
- Registry ID: `drc-ohchr-ffm-2025`
- Publisher: OHCHR / UN Human Rights
- Source type: human\_rights
- Published: 2025-09-05
- Registry title: Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)
- Editorial note: All parties named at one standard — including the state's own army.
- Original: [Open source]()
The UN's fact-finding mission refuses the single villain — and names the Congolese army alongside the rebels, at the same standard.
Between January and July 2025 it found quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition — murder, torture, rape and sexual slavery — and that M23 may have committed crimes against humanity. It logged at least 319 civilians killed by M23 in Rutshuru over thirteen days in July. In the same report, at the same standard, it found the Congolese army and its allied Wazalendo militias committed war crimes of their own, and that certain Wazalendo conscripted or enlisted children under 15.
On sexual violence it kept its streams separate — over 1,000 victims logged in South Kivu by civil-society groups, attributed to retreating government-aligned forces. On Rwanda it stayed clinical: responsible for violations directly committed by its armed forces, with credible allegations of covert RDF presence within M23, while noting the degree of control requires further investigation.
#### Takeaways
- Findings at the 'reasonable grounds to believe' threshold — allegations warranting a Commission of Inquiry, not adjudicated guilt.
- Both axes are named — no false parity, but the state's own forces are in the ledger.
- Sexual-violence figures are kept in separate lanes, attributed and trauma-informed.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: One ledger, both axes: M23 (with Rwandan soldiers in some cases) and the Congolese army with its Wazalendo allies — all named at the 'reasonable grounds to believe' standard.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: a UN mission finding all parties committed acts that may amount to war crimes.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### A war costed at a billion four, and cut.
- Registry ID: `drc-ocha-2026`
- Publisher: UN OCHA
- Source type: humanitarian
- Published: 2026-01-28
- Registry title: Democratic Republic of the Congo — 2026 appeal and situation reports
- Editorial note: A war written down as an accounting problem — and an appeal cut while need held.
- Original: [Open source]()
OCHA counts 14.9 million people in humanitarian need, asks US$1.4 billion, and admits it can fund a response for only 7.3 million.
The target fell from the 11 million prioritised the year before, and the need itself fell from 21.2 million to 14.9 million — on a change of method, OCHA is explicit, not improvement. By late June the appeal sat about 53 per cent covered, a US$655.8 million gap still open on a live dashboard that moves as contributions arrive.
Underneath the arithmetic runs the friction its field reports record: at least seven armed hold-ups of aid convoys on a single North Kivu axis between January and May, a needs-assessment team taking ten hours to cover 22 kilometres of mud, and access OCHA calls more dangerous and more complex than ever. The measurements are authoritative, but they are appeals — OCHA reports needs and its own access, and names no belligerent's guilt.
#### Takeaways
- Authoritative on needs, funding and access — but it carries no casualty toll and names no belligerent's guilt.
- The need fell on methodology, not improvement; the narrowed target is a funding decision.
- Coverage is a rolling FTS figure; re-pull the dashboard numbers at publication.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The appeal cut, not the crisis: 14.9 million in need, US$1.4 billion asked, but a response funded for only 7.3 million (down from 11 million) — a funding decision, OCHA says, not an improvement.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 14.9 million in need, US$1.4 billion asked, 7.3 million targeted, ~53 per cent covered.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Four ways to count the uprooted, and hunger in tiers.
- Registry ID: `drc-iom-dtm-2026`
- Publisher: IOM
- Source type: humanitarian
- Published: 2026-02-01
- Registry title: DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)
- Editorial note: The collapse as a displacement ledger; hunger read in severity tiers, snapshot apart from projection.
- Original: [Open source]()
IOM turns the collapse into a displacement ledger, and the IPC layers hunger on top as a severity tier, not a headline.
The Displacement Tracking Matrix records 5,647,465 people displaced across the four eastern provinces — North Kivu 2,561,136, South Kivu 1,395,604, Ituri 1,360,577, Tanganyika 330,148 — with armed-group attacks the cause 87 per cent of host-family IDPs cite. Return is tracked in a separate column, never subtracted: many go back to destroyed or occupied homes and face re-displacement in an active war.
The IPC keeps hunger apart from displacement and reads it in tiers: about 24.8 million people in Crisis or worse in the September-to-December 2025 snapshot, including 3.2 million in Emergency; a projection of about 26.5 million for January to June 2026, which the IPC calls a slight improvement on an earlier forecast. Snapshot and projection are different objects, held apart.
#### Takeaways
- IDPs, returnees and the hungry are separate ledgers — never summed, never subtracted from one another.
- The IPC snapshot (~24.8M) is not its projection (~26.5M); keep them distinct.
- The IOM appeal is its own slice, not the DRC-wide ask; DTM rounds move.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The displacement ledger by province: 5,647,465 internally displaced across North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika — with a returnee count tracked in a separate column, never subtracted.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 5.65 million IDPs across four eastern provinces, with returnees tracked separately.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### A population the size of a nation, split in two.
- Registry ID: `drc-unhcr-2026`
- Publisher: UNHCR
- Source type: humanitarian
- Published: 2026-04-30
- Registry title: DR Congo emergency — refugees, asylum-seekers and internal displacement
- Editorial note: Two figures kept deliberately apart: exile abroad, and a home still unsafe.
- Original: [Open source]()
UNHCR keeps two figures deliberately apart: those who fled the country, and those displaced inside a home still unsafe.
It registers 1,247,610 Congolese as refugees and asylum-seekers across the region as of 30 April 2026 — more than half, 657,223, sheltering in Uganda — against 5,773,180 displaced inside the country itself, dated 31 March. The wording is administrative, drawn jointly with host governments and IOM.
What it measures is a population the size of a nation, split between exile and a home still unsafe. Each figure carries its own as-of date and leans partly on host-government registration; combining cross-border refugees with internal displacement into one dramatic total would misrepresent the data.
#### Takeaways
- Cross-border refugees and internal displacement are distinct categories, never added.
- Uganda hosts 657,223 — more than half the regional refugee figure.
- Figures lean on host-government registration and roll; keep the country appeal distinct from the regional one.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Two populations, two dates, never summed: 1,247,610 Congolese refugees and asylum-seekers in the region (30 Apr 2026), against 5,773,180 displaced inside the country (31 Mar 2026).
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 1.25 million Congolese refugees regionally against 5.77 million displaced inside the country.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### A march of falling cities.
- Registry ID: `drc-acled-2025`
- Publisher: ACLED
- Source type: research
- Published: 2025-06-18
- Registry title: DRC / M23 — political-violence event data
- Editorial note: The war as a coordinate grid of events — the deadliest quarter since 2002.
- Original: [Open source]()
ACLED reduces the war to a coordinate grid of events and bodies — and the tally reads as the deadliest quarter in two decades.
It records over 2,500 reported fatalities across all armed groups in the first three months of 2025 alone, by its own conservative estimate the deadliest quarter since 2002. Behind the tally is a march of falling cities — Goma besieged on 26 January, Bukavu taken in February, Uvira on 10 December — each attributed to a Rwanda-backed M23, together driving a 70 per cent rise in political violence across the two Kivus over the year.
The database counts; it does not mourn. Its figures are conservative reported estimates from a live dataset — the 2,500 covers all armed groups, not M23 alone, and a separate 450 belongs to the ADF.
#### Takeaways
- Conservative reported estimates from a live dataset — cite with the as-of date.
- The 2,500 covers all armed groups, not M23 alone; keep the separate ADF figure distinct.
- 'Rwanda-backed' is ACLED's wording; one circulating figure is a belligerent's own claim.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: ACLED's tally: over 2,500 reported fatalities across all armed groups in the first quarter of 2025 — the deadliest quarter since the Second Congo War in 2002, and a march of falling cities.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: over 2,500 reported fatalities in Q1 2025, the deadliest quarter since 2002.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### The camps behind the front line.
- Registry ID: `drc-hrw-2026`
- Publisher: Human Rights Watch
- Source type: human\_rights
- Published: 2026-06-10
- Registry title: Eastern DRC abuse documentation — Uvira, the camps, and the other axis
- Editorial note: The war as specific, attributable acts — documented floors, not tolls.
- Original: [Open source]()
Where the UN mission works in aggregate, Human Rights Watch works up close — and its files put faces on the ledgers.
Its June 2026 report, built on 102 former-detainee accounts, describes M23- and Rwandan-run camps at Rumangabo and Tshanzu where thousands were forcibly recruited — captured soldiers, police and civilians, including children as young as 12 — and beaten, worked and killed; the death toll HRW will only estimate as hundreds, perhaps more, pending the excavation of mass graves. A separate May 2026 file counts the twelve-week occupation of Uvira from 10 December 2025: 53 civilians summarily executed, most on the first day, eight women raped, at least twelve people forcibly disappeared.
HRW attributes each act to M23 and Rwandan forces, and assesses that Rwanda's presence meets the legal threshold for belligerent occupation — its own legal characterisation, which Rwanda rejects. It also documents the other axis: army-backed Wazalendo committing beatings, killings and extortion, at times on an ethnic basis, even as the army kept supplying them.
#### Takeaways
- Figures are documented floors, not tolls — HRW counts what it verified and says so.
- Attributed and joint (M23 with the RDF); the Wazalendo axis is shown too, dates not conflated.
- Legal terms — belligerent occupation, effective control — are HRW's characterisations, attributed.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Documented floors, not tolls: 102 former-detainee accounts of forced-recruitment camps; 53 civilians summarily executed in occupied Uvira; a camp death toll HRW will only estimate as 'hundreds, perhaps more.'
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 102 detainee accounts, camps at Rumangabo and Tshanzu, 53 executed in Uvira.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### How the peace tables multiplied.
- Registry ID: `drc-monusco-2026`
- Publisher: UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO)
- Source type: official\_position
- Published: 2025-12-19
- Registry title: MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown
- Editorial note: The mission's account of its own mandate; the regional forces judged to have failed.
- Original: [Open source]()
The diplomacy fragmented faster than the front lines, and the offensives kept taking ground as the ink dried.
The DRC and Rwanda signed a US- and Qatar-mediated agreement in Washington on 27 June 2025, the presidents following on 4 December; M23, not a party to it, negotiated separately with Kinshasa in Doha and signed a declaration of principles on 19 July. Neither track stopped the war. MONUSCO, meanwhile, sits on the clock: the Security Council renewed its mandate to 20 December 2026 at an authorised ceiling of 11,500 troops, then paused the mission's own withdrawal.
MONUSCO describes its mandate as protecting civilians under imminent threat of physical violence — the UN's own account, not an independent verdict on whether it holds. The regional forces sent to contain M23 — the East African bloc's, then the SADC mission — are judged by analysts to have failed; SADC began withdrawing after Goma fell and fourteen of its South African peacekeepers were killed.
#### Takeaways
- Attribute the protection framing as the mission's position, not an independent finding.
- 11,500 is an authorised ceiling, not deployed strength; the withdrawal is paused and condition-based.
- The war has more mediators than it has ceasefires.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: More mediators than ceasefires: a Washington agreement (27 Jun 2025) and a separate Doha declaration (19 Jul), neither of which stopped the war, as MONUSCO's own withdrawal was paused.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Washington and Doha peace tracks against continued offensives.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Too many peace tables, and a mineral stake.
- Registry ID: `drc-icg-framing`
- Publisher: International Crisis Group
- Source type: research
- Published: 2025-12-19
- Registry title: The M23 Offensive: Elusive Peace in the Great Lakes (Africa Report N°320)
- Editorial note: A map of why the deals keep failing — carried as framing, not a body count.
- Original: [Open source]()
Crisis Group frames the war as a problem of too many mediators and too little peace — and the economics is an accelerant, not a proven sole cause.
The value of the reading is judgment: signed accords in Washington and Doha, an African Union mediator with no authority over five rival facilitators, and an offensive that kept taking ground as the ink dried. It is carried here only to frame the diplomacy, because the source could not be fetched live; its substantive figures are sourced instead to OCHA, OHCHR and the Group of Experts.
Where minerals appear, they appear as the sources frame them: AFC/M23 came to control nearly half of South Kivu's cassiterite and coltan and over two-thirds of its wolframite after seizing Nzibira and the Twangiza mine — a documented economic stake, and an accelerant, not a proven sole cause, alongside citizenship, land, ethnicity and Rwandan security concerns.
#### Takeaways
- An interpretive lens on the diplomacy — every ICG figure is held unverified and sourced elsewhere.
- Minerals are a documented factor and accelerant, never a proven sole cause.
- Source every hard figure to the bodies that collect it, not to the framing.
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Minerals as a documented factor, not a sole cause: after seizing Nzibira and the Twangiza mine, AFC/M23 came to control nearly half of South Kivu's cassiterite and coltan and over two-thirds of its wolframite.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: M23 control of cassiterite, coltan and wolframite in South Kivu.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Analysis shelf
### UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report
- Publisher: UN Security Council
- Type: report
- Why it matters: The Security Council's own investigators on Rwanda's role, at the exact wording — the strongest UN attribution to date.
- Position note: Investigative panel; an attributed assessment, hedged and contested, not a court ruling.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: Decisive support and de facto control.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: Rwanda's role.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)
- Publisher: OHCHR
- Type: investigation
- Why it matters: The UN record that names every armed actor — including the Congolese army — at a single standard of proof.
- Position note: UN human-rights body; findings at 'reasonable grounds to believe,' allegations not verdicts.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: One ledger, both axes.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: all parties named.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### Eastern DRC abuse documentation (Uvira and the camps)
- Publisher: Human Rights Watch
- Type: investigation
- Why it matters: Close-up, attributed documentation — forced-recruitment camps and the Uvira executions — that the aggregate counts are built from.
- Position note: Advocacy monitor; documented floors, not tolls; legal terms attributed.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The smallest units of the war, behind the aggregate counts.
- Alt text: Displaced people in eastern DR Congo.
- Credit: MONUSCO Photos, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 2.0
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### DRC 2026 appeal and situation reports
- Publisher: UN OCHA
- Type: report
- Why it matters: The humanitarian ledgers — need, funding, access — with no belligerent's guilt named.
- Position note: Humanitarian source; appeals and access, not casualty tolls.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The ledgers, kept apart.
- Alt text: Editorial data surface: displacement by province.
- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation
- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Media shelf
### North Kivu province — locator map
- Publisher: Wikimedia Commons
- Type: media
- Why it matters: A rights-safe locator for the province at the centre of the war — orientation, not battlefield control.
- Position note: Reusable CC BY-SA asset; geography context, never a front line.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: The centre of gravity: North Kivu and Goma.
- Alt text: Map locating North Kivu within the DR Congo.
- Credit: Profoss / Uwe Dedering
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
### MONUSCO — civilian protection in the eastern DRC
- Publisher: MONUSCO
- Type: media
- Why it matters: The UN mission's own account of a protection mandate whose regional partners analysts judge to have failed.
- Position note: Reusable CC BY-SA asset; the mission's position, attributed.
- Original: [Open source]()
#### Visual provenance
- Caption: A protection mandate on a paused clock.
- Alt text: MONUSCO peacekeepers in eastern DR Congo.
- Credit: MONUSCO Photos, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights / license: CC BY-SA 2.0
- Asset: [View image]()
- Original / provenance: [Open source]()
## Open questions
- Refresh the Group of Experts figure at publication: the newer report (14,000–18,000 RDF as of late Dec 2025) supersedes the midterm's 6,000–7,000; confirm which is latest before publishing.
- Refresh every rolling figure with a fresh as-of date — OCHA dashboard, UNHCR portal, IOM DTM round, ACLED quarter — and re-confirm the access-blocked primary pages in a browser.
- Keep the ledgers — IDPs, refugees, returnees, food-insecure, civilian deaths, military deaths — visually and verbally separate; keep the IPC snapshot distinct from its projection.
- Hold every Rwanda-attribution phrase at the source's exact wording, every belligerent statement as an own-position, and every FFM/GoE finding at its stated standard of proof — no verdict, no tightened term.
- Show both axes of abuse (M23 with the RDF, and FARDC with Wazalendo), each attributed, without false parity; treat minerals as a documented factor and accelerant, never a proven sole cause.
## Source registry
- `drc-goe-2025` — [United Nations Security Council — UN Group of Experts on the DRC — midterm report](); primary\_document; 2025-12-30
- `drc-ohchr-ffm-2025` — [OHCHR / UN Human Rights — Fact-Finding Mission on North and South Kivu (A/HRC/60/80)](); human\_rights; 2025-09-05
- `drc-ocha-2026` — [UN OCHA — Democratic Republic of the Congo — 2026 appeal and situation reports](); humanitarian; 2026-01-28
- `drc-iom-dtm-2026` — [IOM — DRC Crisis Response Plan and Displacement Tracking Matrix (with IPC food security)](); humanitarian; 2026-02-01
- `drc-unhcr-2026` — [UNHCR — DR Congo emergency — refugees, asylum-seekers and internal displacement](); humanitarian; 2026-04-30
- `drc-acled-2025` — [ACLED — DRC / M23 — political-violence event data](); research; 2025-06-18
- `drc-hrw-2026` — [Human Rights Watch — Eastern DRC abuse documentation — Uvira, the camps, and the other axis](); human\_rights; 2026-06-10
- `drc-monusco-2026` — [UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) — MONUSCO — mandate, civilian protection and a paused drawdown](); official\_position; 2025-12-19
- `drc-icg-framing` — [International Crisis Group — The M23 Offensive: Elusive Peace in the Great Lakes (Africa Report N°320)](); research; 2025-12-19