DR Congo has sued Rwanda in the ICJ for decades of ‘cruelty’ Military Issues

Kinshasa has taken Kigali to the UN High Court over 30 years of alleged genocide, rape, and deportation.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is taking Rwanda to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a three-part hearing. decades about the “aggression” that is being said in the east of the country.

The Congolese government submitted the decision to the ICJ – the United Nations High Court for International Disputes – on Friday, accusing Kigali of being directly responsible for years of killings, displacement and brutality in the eastern DRC, which borders Rwanda.

The dispute concerns “atrocities committed in Rwanda from 1996 to the present day”, the ICJ said in a statement, confirming that it had accepted the DRC’s request to initiate the case.

The Congolese petition said that this violence “has been targeting the Hutu who were present in Zairian, and later the Congolese, part after the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994” in Rwanda.

However, the article added that other Congolese tribes, such as Nyindu, Bembe, Lega, Nande, Hunde and Bashi, have also fought against them.

“Civilians in eastern DRC have been subjected to harassment, abuse, torture, sexual violence, displacement, and discrimination,” the Congolese government said in a statement describing the “immense” suffering.

The document states that the Rwandan military, together with proxy groups including and M23/AFC alliance, and the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), have carried out illegal attacks in the eastern part of the DRC since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. These operations have targeted refugee camps, villages, and rural areas, continuing the First and Second Congo Wars until today, it added.

M23, the most prominent of the groups mentioned, has taken control of Congolese cities Goma and Bukavu in early 2025evicting hundreds of thousands of people and restoring decades of peace.

The conflict has highlighted the failure of recent diplomatic efforts, including a A peace treaty made by the US signed in June 2025 and its results Qatari ceasefire declaration, both have failed to end the violence.

Rwanda has always denied that it supports M23instead justifying their military presence in eastern DRC as self-defense against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu militia that was formed from the remnants of the military that started the massacre in 1994. Kigali accuses Kinshasa of keeping the group, which the DRC denies.

United Nations experts and Western governments He has accepted the DRC’s position on Kigali’s position in the east, and found sufficient evidence that Rwanda is supporting M23.

The DRC is asking the ICJ to order Rwanda to stop all alleged “violations” and pay full compensation to the government and victims.

There was no immediate response from Kigali, which has refused to support the armed forces operating in the DRC.

This is the third time the DRC wants to take action with the ICJ against Rwanda. The first attempt in 2006 was canceled after the court found it invalid.