The M23 rebel group has pulled out of peace talks with the Congolese government, accusing Kinshasa of violating a ceasefire agreement signed last month in Qatar.
The armed group, which seized swathes of eastern DR Congo in January — including the key city of Goma — said it would not return to negotiations unless the government halts military offensives.
“M23 will not sit at the table with a government that doesn’t want peace,” spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka told the BBC’s Great Lakes service, alleging that Congolese forces had continued attacking rebel positions despite the truce.
The Congolese military denies the claims, instead accusing the M23 of carrying out near-daily assaults in North and South Kivu.
Talks in Qatar were meant to revive the fragile ceasefire and pave the way for a broader peace deal. But on Monday, when negotiations were due to resume, M23 delegates failed to show up.
A Qatari official told AFP that a draft agreement had already been shared with both sides, alongside a separate peace framework signed in Washington between DR Congo and Rwanda — a deal hailed by former U.S. President Donald Trump as a “glorious triumph” that could open access to Congo’s vast mineral reserves.
That U.S.-brokered deal, however, has done little to halt the bloodshed. Kinshasa, the UN, and Western powers accuse Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge Kigali has repeatedly denied.
The fighting has exacted a heavy toll. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from the mineral-rich east, according to the United Nations.
The collapse of the latest Qatar initiative marks yet another setback in decades of failed attempts to end one of Africa’s deadliest conflicts.
