The AFC/M23 rebel alliance in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has grown to roughly 30,000 fighters and is constructing a parallel administration across the territory it holds, according to the latest United Nations Group of Experts report, cited as S/2026/466 by regional outlets and reported by Bloomberg and Africanews this week.
The figure matters because it reframes the war. A movement estimated at 3,000 combatants in 2024 has grown tenfold, absorbing former Congolese soldiers, police and Wazalendo fighters, many captured or defected after Goma fell. The experts say the group no longer seeks reintegration into the national army. It advocates a Federal Republic of Congo with itself leading a future federal army, or failing that, an autonomous eastern region. It has built tax systems in Goma, Bukavu and Rubaya and taken control of public utilities.
On Rwanda, the report is unambiguous. It estimates 14,000 to 18,000 Rwandan Defence Force troops deployed across North and South Kivu as of late December 2025, operating drones, electronic warfare systems and GPS-guided mortars, with some RDF personnel wearing M23 uniforms. It says Kigali continued to dictate which territories the movement should seize or hold. The report also documents the economics: coltan from Rubaya exceeding 120 tonnes a month, taxed by M23 and smuggled into Rwanda, whose cassiterite exports rose 58 per cent in 2025 without matching domestic production. Rwanda has consistently denied backing M23. The report additionally links former president Joseph Kabila more closely to the alliance, and accuses the Congolese army itself of 789 documented violations and of arming embargoed militias.
Western coverage still calls this a rebellion. Thirty thousand fighters, a foreign expeditionary force, a tax administration and a mineral export corridor describe something else, a de facto partition financed by the minerals in the world’s phones, proceeding while a US-brokered peace agreement signed in December is stalled.What to watch: Whether the March 2026 US sanctions on RDF commanders are extended to mineral supply chains, the only pressure point the report suggests either capital would feel.
UN should be booted out of Africa with immediate effect