Since January, the M23 rebel movement has seized Goma and Bukavu — two key cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — and since set up to govern for the long term in the regions under its control.

The Congolese armed forces (FARDC) comprised around 135,000 soldiers in 2022, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, although experts believe this figure has since risen.

The United Nations estimates that M23 has only a few thousand fighters, supported by around 4,000 Rwandan soldiers.

In 2023, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi more than doubled military spending to $794 million (€732 million) — which raises questions about how M23 fighters have managed to gain control of such significant regions of eastern DRC.

"One of the main factors explaining the weakness of the FARDC lies in systemic corruption," suggested Alain De Neve, a researcher at the Royal Higher Institute for Defense (RHID) in Brussels, a Belgian think tank.

"Numerous reports have highlighted the disappearance of funds intended for soldiers' salaries and military logistics," De Neve added. "This practice explains why troop morale is particularly low and why desertions are recurrent. In some cases, soldiers stationed in the eastern part of the country even resort to looting or extorting local populations in order to survive."

Ciaran Wrons-Passmann, director of the German Ecumenical Network for Central Africa (ÖNZ), said the FARDC had developed a "life of its own" — becoming a "self-service shop," and providing an "opportunity for leaders to........

© Deutsche Welle