The Rwandan army is supporting M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo, using sophisticated weapons such as surface-to-air missiles. Tensions are running high in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as fighting intensifies on the ground. A Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) mobile Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) was fired at a UN observation drone last Wednesday without hitting it, the confidential report said. The UN has no past reporting of known armed groups possessing the training, capital or resources to operate and maintain a mobile SAM system. The M23 and the Rwanda army have used numerous weapons against aircraft and also have in their armory anti-aircraft guns and MANPAD mobile air defense systems.
Neither the United Nations nor the DRC army had so far commented on the incident. In late January, M23 spokesman Willy Ngoma appeared in a video on YouTube threatening MONUSCO with reprisals and accused it of supplying “enemies,” or DRC forces, with information about rebel activity gathered by drones. The DRC, the UN, and Western countries say Rwanda is supporting the rebels, an allegation Kigali denies.
Clashes have intensified recently between the M23 and the Congolese army. The head of the UN’s MONUSCO peacekeeping mission Bintou Keita said on X, formerly Twitter, that several of its vehicles had been set alight. Protests broke out last week in the capital Kinshasa and the southeastern city of Lubumbashi.
On Friday, dozens of youths demonstrated outside the French and British embassies and earlier in the week, in front of the US embassy. The government has decided to strengthen the security arrangements in different embassies as well as in the premises of MONUSCO, it said late Sunday. As a precaution, foreign schools were closed on Monday morning, as well as some shops in the center of Kinshasa.
