2024 in Review: The armed conflict in eastern DR Congo
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Al Jazeera Podcasts. Hi, Malika here. As 2024 wraps up, this week and next, we're bringing you our year in review. Ten episodes looking at the stories that shaped our year. And we're starting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a year of compounded crisis and attempted coup, outbreaks of disease and fighting in eastern DRC that displaced more than 1.6 million people.

We heard about the roots of that conflict from Al Jazeera correspondent Catherine Soy. This episode first aired February 27th, 2024. All dates and references are from that time. Today, as fighting escalates, what's next for the people of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo?

The UN says that DRC's plight is one of the most neglected in the world. There is no food, there is no water, there is no proper sanitation or even health care. I'm Malika Bilal, and this is The Take. Catherine Soy has been reporting on eastern DRC for years for Al Jazeera, and she's seen the toll that years of war have taken on the people there.

It's been years and years and years of suffering. People have to keep running. People have to look behind their backs because any time something can erupt. Those people have often been displaced multiple times. In just the last two years, more than 1.6 million have been forced to move by fighting over control of the region.

I remember when I went to one of the camps and there was a sound, it sounded like a gunshot, but it wasn't. And everybody started running. And that is what we are seeing. People are traumatized. They keep running. They have to have their belongings packed so that they can just take off. And that is a terrible, terrible way to live.

Catherine is reporting now out of the city of Goma, the provincial capital, covering an escalation in a conflict that's been continuing for decades. There are more than 100 armed groups trying to get control of territories in this part of the country. And the Congolese government and other international forces have really been unable to stop this conflict.

Goma is a city of 2 million people, and it's already hosting thousands who have been displaced by those years of fighting. But in 2022, one armed group took control of more territory in the region. It's known as M23, and now it's closing in on Goma. Perhaps the most prominent armed non-state group in the eastern DRC is the March the 23rd movement, known as M23, which is predominantly made up of ethnic Tutsis.

Now, thousands more people have come to Goma and a neighboring town called Sake, seeking refuge. But there's fighting there too. Now, M23 currently is on hills near Sake, and the government is just trying to push them further back. So the battle for Sake has been intense. M23 has taken large swathes

of land and Sake is about 25 kilometers west of Goma and it's very significant this town because it's the gateway to Goma supplies pass through Sake and right now the main road to Sake is too dangerous for people so these supplies cannot get to the city.

And it's much easier for M23 to march on Goma if it gets control of Sake. Right now, it's a ghost town. Nobody is there except security forces and, you know, also M23. This time, people are definitely very afraid. There's a lot of uncertainty. The road from Sake to Goma is now lined with tents that weren't there two weeks ago.

They're filled with people who have nowhere else to go. On that road, we saw all these people carrying everything they could, chairs, mattresses, utensils. They're all heading to the camps. 1.6 million people have so far fled from their homes in the last two years.

And when we're going around, we have seen so many camps. We have seen people just trying to do the best they can to set up these shelters that are not protected at all. They're not protected from the elements. It's raining now, so the camps get flooded.

So it's a very, very desperate situation. Now, we've also been speaking to aid workers who are trying the best they can with whatever they have, but they are also overwhelmed because the needs are so many. And some people are saying that even when they go to the camp, there is nothing for them there.

One woman Catherine spoke to was Deborah Belole. She fled her village in November after M23 fighters took it over. But after reaching Sake, her husband was killed during fighting in the area. And the camps aren't able to provide much for people in situations like Deborah's. I went to the forest to look for food for my children a few days ago. I met bandits who took my supplies and they raped me.

She was actually raped in the bushes just a week after she arrived at this camp. Like I said, there's nothing for them. So they go to the bushes to look for food for their families, but they are also vulnerable to attacks. So such cases are many we have been told and the stories are very heartbreaking. And compounding that heartbreak is the fact that this is a conflict that goes back decades.

The conflict in the east followed the Rwandan genocide. On April 7th in 1994, state-sanctioned Hutu militias turned on the country's Tutsi minority. Tutsis were hunted down in their homes, cars and on streets. A million ethnic Tutsis were killed. Many Hutus then crossed to DRC as refugees and among them were extremists.

who were said to have participated in the genocide. Now, Rwanda is a neighboring country. Rwanda says it is still pursuing some of these groups, some of these individuals. And that pursuit eventually led to two Rwandan wars with DRC in 1996 and 1998, which killed millions and drew in multiple neighboring countries.

One of the many groups that emerged from that period was M23, one of the key groups fighting today. M23 is made up of Tutsis and has always been accused of being a proxy of Rwanda. And over the years, M23 has grown. And at one point, the fighters took control of Goma for a short while in 2012-2013.

I covered that rebel advance in 2012. It was spectacular. These guys came in and they were so sophisticated. They had all this equipment. So that's why people say that, you know, a rebel group like that really cannot be without barking of an external force. So it puts a credence on

to what everybody has been saying, that it is Rwanda that is behind M23. Catherine says that this situation today involves more than 100 armed groups who've been trying to wrest control of territories in the eastern part of the country. The Congolese government and other international forces have so far been unable to stop the conflict.

We have a coalition of government forces led by the Congolese army. We have troops from the Southern African Development Community, SADC. Those are regional troops there from Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa.

And then we have a coalition of local self-defense groups called Wazanlendo, which means patriots in Swahili. So now they have also been fighting alongside the government. According to the DRC government, the United Nations and Western countries like France, M23 is backed by neighboring Rwanda.

But Rwanda has always denied it. Rwanda has been very clear, saying that it is not involved in this conflict whatsoever. But then we have seen footholds of Rwanda from past wars.

And right now, a lot of people say that it is trying to destabilize the country to hive off these parts, especially the areas bordering Rwanda. So some people say that could be an objective.

But then again, GRC and this part of the country, particularly where the rebels are, is very rich in minerals. So there are people who are saying that this could also be an objective because there's a lot of wealth in that part of the country. Rwanda says that is not true and the country is just trying to protect itself from outside aggression.

So it's getting makia by the day. After the break, where this fighting leaves the Congolese people now.

When it comes to the fighting in eastern DRC, Al Jazeera's Catherine Soy says it's also a scramble for resources, some of which have become staples of modern life.

A lot of people keep saying that this battle in eastern DRC is for minerals. Minerals like coltan, which is used in all electronics. We have cobalt, gold, diamonds and other minerals as well there. And then the location of the fighting right now is very significant because

It has most of the minerals and it's very wealthy. So whoever controls that area has this riches and this wealth. But the Congolese people haven't seen much of that wealth. Our country is rich, but we don't benefit at all. We can't really say we are rich as we don't see anything of it.

So DRC is very rich and it's also a food basket that can supply food across the continent. So it is very rich. But over the years and because of the interests, it has lagged behind and Congolese are suffering greatly.

the cost of living is very high. When we talk about just the basic needs that they have to enjoy this very rich country, there's a lot of poverty as well. So many Congolese say that much more needs to be done to bring the country to the potential that it

should have and so that people can stop suffering. And a lot of Congolese are also saying that the only solution now is to make sure that all these outside influences, they need to leave so that DRC can strive.

While the outside forces that the Congolese want to see gone include the dozens of rebel groups, over the years, that's also grown to include the United Nations and its troops as well. The UN has a peacekeeping force called Munisko, but increasingly the mission has become very unpopular.

Congolese say that the peacekeepers have not done much to keep the peace. They say that civilians are still attacked by militia. They've been displaced. They've lost their homes. So when people see the blue helmet and these attacks keep happening, sometimes very close to UN bases, and their response is so slow, people get terrified.

And they went by staging these protests and even burning munusco facilities and bases. And the government did request the Security Council to withdraw the troops.

That has been approved. The withdrawal will be done in phases to the end of the year. The Democratic Republic of Congo's foreign minister and the head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo signed agreements to end the presence of UN peacekeepers after more than two decades in the country. It will be very interesting, though, how this...

that works out because from past experience, the army has been overwhelmed by their security demands. The troops are under equipped, understaffed. The military has often been accused of corruption and human rights abuses. So people say that it's going to be a

challenge to have the army take over fully. That leaves the people who've been displaced unprotected. And some of them, says Catherine, eventually decide to go back to their homes despite the dangers.

I remember one family that we talked to and this man told me that they decided to stay in Sake because obviously life at the camps is not good for them. So they decided to stay in Sake despite all those problems and the dangers and the bombs that are landing on their houses.

So when we went there, the previous night, there was a bomb that hit that particular homestead. And there was a woman and two children who were killed when that bomb hit.

So, you know, this man that we were talking to say it's just a constant battle to make these tough decisions. Shall we go to the camp where we are likely to starve or shall we go back home and hope maybe not to die? But for now, they're left living through this neglected conflict.

because of all these other crises like war in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and so on. So people feel neglected. They say that they feel invisible, they feel forgotten. But we have also seen more international pressure for mediation.

Maybe that can help get a ceasefire, but we also know that past efforts by regional leaders for a dialogue have not yielded much. So yes, people say they feel they're stuck and they feel that they will continue suffering without an end or without a solution. And that's The Take.

This episode was produced by Farhanisa Kampana and Sariel Khalili, with Nagin Oliyai, Zaina Badr, Sonia Bagat, David Enders, Chloe K. Lee, Miranda Lin, Ashish Malhotra, Khalid Sultan, Amy Walters, and me, Malika Bilal. Alex Roldan is our sound designer. Alexandra Locke is the Take's executive producer. And Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. We'll be back.