Congo files ICJ case accusing Rwanda of backing M23 rebels

The Democratic Republic of the Congo filed a new case against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice on June 26, and the court registered it as Case 202 and posted the application the same day. The move adds a legal front to a conflict in eastern Congo that has already produced mass displacement, repeated abuses and stalled diplomacy, but it does not by itself stop the violence in North and South Kivu.

Kinshasa accuses Kigali of backing the M23 rebel movement, which seized major territory in eastern Congo after a rapid advance last year. The court’s filing opens a formal dispute over conduct that the United Nations Human Rights Office said in September 2025 may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, with reasonable grounds to believe M23, supported by the Rwanda Defence Forces, committed summary executions, torture, enforced disappearances, forced recruitment and widespread sexual violence after taking Goma in late January 2025. The same report said hundreds of children were detained and young males forcibly recruited.

The case revives a long legal fight. Congo first took Rwanda to the court in 2002 in Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo, alleging massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law; the International Court of Justice ruled on February 3, 2006, that it had no jurisdiction to hear that application. The new filing gives Kinshasa another chance to press those claims in a forum with global visibility, even though any ruling will take time and cannot itself force fighters off the battlefield.

The legal escalation comes while regional diplomacy continues. Congo and Rwanda signed a U.S.-facilitated peace agreement in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2025, and on June 24, 2026, representatives from both countries met in London with the United States, Qatar, Togo as African Union mediator, and the African Union Commission for the sixth Joint Oversight Committee meeting. That parallel track underscores the central tension in eastern Congo: courtroom pressure, mediation and ceasefire talks are moving at once, while civilians in Goma, Bukavu and surrounding areas remain exposed to the consequences of a war that the United Nations says has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands.