Fresh clashes broke out Thursday between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DR Congo) army and the M23 rebel group, one day after DR Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame met in Angola and agreed to de-escalate tensions amid renewed fighting, which risks “inadvertent escalation”. FRANCE 24 spoke to Chatham House’s Ben Shepherd to get an understanding of the origins of these tensions, which can be traced back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Renewed fighting over the past month between the DR Congo army and M23 in North Kivu (eastern DR Congo) has led to increased tensions between DR Congo and Rwanda. M23 is a rebel military group that is based in eastern DR Congo and mainly operates in the North Kivu province. The rebels are named after a peace agreement they signed with the Congolese government on March 23, 2009, form part of the minority Tutsi ethnic group and are closely linked to the Tutsi in Rwanda. DR Congo has accused Rwanda of using the rebel group, which captured the key border town of Bunagana last month, as a proxy. Rwanda has denied these accusations.
