Congo and M23 rebels agree roadmap to revive stalled peace talks

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 rebel alliance agreed on a detailed roadmap for peace negotiations following five days of closed-door talks in Switzerland, according to a joint statement released by the mediating governments. The document, issued after negotiators met from August 17 to 21, sets out sequenced steps and timelines for the stalled Doha peace process, more than nine months after the government and the rebel coalition signed a framework agreement in Qatar.

The talks, held away from public view in Switzerland, brought together representatives of the DRC government and AFC/M23 alongside facilitators from Qatar, the United States, Togo — acting as African Union mediator — the African Union Commission and Switzerland, which hosted the round and published the resulting statement. The parties also agreed to set up a mechanism to review progress and address disputes over implementation of commitments made under the November 2025 framework, and to adopt a standardised method for reporting alleged violations of a ceasefire that has been repeatedly broken on the ground.

The numbers behind the talks

The scale of what the negotiators are trying to end is difficult to overstate. Congo's prime minister has said more than 7,000 people were killed in the opening weeks of the AFC/M23 offensive that began in January 2025, including close to 3,000 deaths that a senior UN official attributed to the rebels' capture of the eastern hub city of Goma alone. A final report by the UN Security Council's Group of Experts this year estimated that Rwanda has deployed between 14,000 and 18,000 of its own soldiers inside eastern Congo to support a rebel force that has grown to roughly 30,000 fighters, findings Kigali disputes.

Displacement figures illustrate the toll on civilians. The number of internally displaced people in the DRC stood at 5.8 million this year, down from a peak of more than seven million in 2025 as some residents began returning home, according to UN humanitarian tracking. The same agencies estimate that 14.9 million people across the country need humanitarian assistance in 2026, though funding shortfalls mean aid groups can realistically reach only about 7.3 million of them.

A framework agreement that has yet to hold

The Doha Framework for a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed by DRC and AFC/M23 representatives on November 15, 2025, was meant to lock in a ceasefire and open the way to political talks on decentralisation, the status of Congolese Tutsi and other communities, and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Congolese soil. Progress since then has been halting. Fighting has continued in pockets of North and South Kivu even as delegations shuttled between Doha and other venues.

AFC/M23 seized Goma, capital of North Kivu province, in late January 2025 and the southern city of Bukavu weeks later, territorial gains it has largely held since. The group traces its roots to a 2012 mutiny by Congolese Tutsi soldiers and has framed its campaign as protection for ethnic Tutsi communities against discrimination and against Hutu militia linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a justification Kinshasa and independent investigators reject. UN experts have repeatedly found that Rwanda exercises operational control over the rebel alliance, supplying artillery, jamming equipment and drone systems that have reshaped the battlefield.

Control of minerals has hardened both sides' incentives to keep fighting even as they negotiate. Since seizing the Rubaya mining zone in North Kivu, AFC/M23 has taxed roughly 120 tonnes of coltan production a month, earning at least $800,000 monthly from a site that alone accounts for close to 15 percent of the world's coltan supply, according to UN investigators. Much of that ore, along with smuggled tin and tungsten, has been documented crossing into Rwanda and entering global electronics supply chains, giving both the rebel alliance and its backer a financial stake in prolonging their hold over the territory the roadmap is meant to help stabilise.

The mediation involves five outside parties, each playing a distinct role that negotiators say has been necessary to keep the process alive:

• Qatar — host and drafter of the original November 2025 framework agreement in Doha
• The United States — lead mediator, represented by senior adviser Massad Boulos
• Togo — serving as the African Union's designated mediator for the talks
• The African Union Commission — providing continental political backing
• Switzerland — host of the August round and publisher of the joint statement

Minembwe and the limits of the ceasefire

The immediate test of the roadmap lies in Minembwe, a highland town in South Kivu's Fizi territory that has changed hands repeatedly this year in fighting between the Twirwaneho militia allied with AFC/M23 and a coalition of the Congolese army, Burundian troops and pro-government Wazalendo fighters. Under the new roadmap, the first formal ceasefire verification mission of the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism Plus — the monitoring body set up under the Doha framework — was scheduled to deploy to Minembwe following a reconnaissance visit on August 20 supported logistically by the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO.

Civilians in South Kivu's highlands have borne the brunt of that fighting, with tens of thousands displaced from the Fizi and Uvira territories over the past year alone. Communities in North Kivu, meanwhile, remain under de facto AFC/M23 administration in Goma and surrounding areas, where residents have described restricted movement, new taxation by rebel authorities and the continued closure of some displacement camps that the group ordered emptied after taking the city.

The conflict has also pushed people across international borders. More than 1.2 million Congolese refugees are now hosted elsewhere in Africa, nearly half of them in Uganda, with smaller populations in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia, according to UN-compiled humanitarian reporting on the country. A modest reversal has begun in places where local truces have held, though officials caution those movements remain fragile and easily reversed if fighting resumes.

Reaction, and the road ahead

Massad Boulos, the senior White House and State Department adviser who has led much of the American mediation effort, welcomed the outcome in a statement posted after the talks concluded.

"I welcome the additional progress made during the meetings held in Switzerland from 17 to 21 August regarding the continuation of the Doha Framework Agreement," Boulos said, thanking Qatar, Togo, Switzerland and the African Union Commission for their support of "peace and stability in eastern Congo and the wider Great Lakes region."

The tone from the battlefield was less conciliatory. An AFC/M23 spokesman, Lawrence Kanyuka, told reporters that Congolese forces had launched drone strikes on densely populated parts of Minembwe even as the Swiss talks were under way, alleging civilian casualties and damage that his group said undercut the spirit of the negotiations — a claim Kinshasa has not confirmed and that could not be independently verified. Congolese analysts have also cautioned against reading too much into the roadmap. Kinshasa-based political analyst Christian Moleka, quoted in regional coverage of the roundtable, noted that the ceasefire-monitoring measures represent only an initial step, with six further protocols on political, security and economic questions still requiring negotiation and signature before any comprehensive settlement is reached.

Negotiators did not set a firm date for the next round of substantive talks, though the joint statement commits both sides to continue working through the roadmap's sequenced steps under the Doha framework, with the newly created oversight mechanism tasked with flagging implementation disputes as they arise. For now, the credibility of the process rests on whether the EJVM+ monitors can operate in places like Minembwe without becoming targets themselves, and on whether Kinshasa and the rebel alliance can translate a paper roadmap into a ceasefire that holds on the ground.