Urgent Call: Stop M23/AFC atrocities in DRC and demand withdrawal of the armed group from Congolese territory

First published on 02/19/2025, and last updated on 02/27/2025

By ICCA Consortium

The Rwanda-backed M23/AFC armed group invaded the town of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on the morning of 27 January 2025. It has continued atrocities against the population, including targeting Indigenous and human rights defenders in the town of Goma and the surrounding territories.

Reports by the United Nations and human rights organizations indicate that more than three thousand people have been brutally killed in less than two weeks in Goma, with a disastrous humanitarian crisis characterized by a lack of water, medicines, food, and the destruction of homes for thousands of displaced people.

Sexual violence against women and children increased in the area as the Rwanda-backed armed groups continued to advance towards the town of Bukavu (the provincial capital of South Kivu), of which it took control on 14 February 2025. Local populations continue to be displaced and killed. These atrocities have also cost the lives of peacekeepers in Goma who are part of the MONUSCO contingent, including 14 South Africans.  

The illegal extraction of strategic minerals (coltan, cassiterite, gold, tungsten, lithium, etc.) and Rwanda’s illicit trafficking and trade in Congolese territories (mainly North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri) are among the causes of these serious crimes and violations of human rights and international and humanitarian law. Countries such as Uganda show support to Rwanda-backed M23’s crimes, as they continue to threaten that they will intensify attacks in eastern Congo.

As organizations dedicated to the defense of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as well as their territories of life, we are very concerned about this crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We call on competent bodies of the United Nations (UN), including the UN Security Council, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the European Union, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to:

• Demand Rwanda to stop all support to the M23/AFC armed groups and immediately withdraw their troops from the Congolese territory;
• Stop financial and military support to Rwanda, which is fueling the war, crime, and violence in the eastern Congo to extract and export minerals from the region illegally;
• Ensure effective cancellation of the memorandum of understanding between the European Union and Rwanda on the supply of critical minerals to the EU. Rwanda does not possess critical minerals, which has intensified the plundering of minerals from eastern Congo, leading to the escalation of violence in the region; and
• Sanction the perpetrators of these crimes in the DRC, who continue to kill and rape with impunity, to ensure respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples as recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

About ICCA Consortium

The ICCA Consortium is a membership-based global non-profit association dedicated to promoting appropriate recognition and support for territories and areas conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities (abbreviated as “ICCAs” or, more simply, “territories of life”). For more information, please visit www.iccaconsortium.org .