The 2025 Goma offensive was a military operation launched by the March 23 Movement (M23), a Congolese rebel group that is part of the Congo River Alliance (AFC) and is supported by Rwanda, against the regional capital of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It lasted from January 23 to January 30, 2025. The campaign was part of the larger M23 campaign in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, which resumed in October 2024 after a pause. During January 2025 the M23 rebels made a rapid advance in the Kivu region, cutting off the road connections to the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma by January 23 and arriving in the city on January 25.
The military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), assisted by United Nations and SADC peacekeepers, and the Wazalendo pro-government militias, prepared a defensive line in northern Goma. The initial M23 attack on January 25 was held back, but the next day the group's forces broke through and entered the city. Fighting occurred throughout Goma on January 27, with M23 reaching the city center, though it remained contested. The FARDC continued to hold Goma International Airport, which became the largest holdout, and several other strategic locations. The airport was captured on January 28 when the Congolese soldiers there surrendered. As of January 29, M23 controlled most of the city, but sporadic fighting continued on the outskirts, especially in northern Goma. Congolese government forces were still resisting in the outskirts of northern Goma as of January 30, though later that day most of the fighting stopped.
Rwanda, which is widely reported to be supporting M23 with soldiers and weapons, was, as a result, ordered on January 24 to cease all diplomatic and consular activities in the DRC and leave Kinshasa, the DRC's capital. The DRC also recalled its diplomats from Rwanda. UN sources estimated that between 500 and 1,000 Rwandan troops assisted M23 in the Goma area. On January 27, the Congolese and Rwandan soldiers exchanged fire across the border near Goma.
The fall of the city has been the largest escalation in the Kivu conflict since the M23 briefly occupied Goma in 2012 and has created concerns that the M23 conflict could turn into a larger regional war due to the presence of troops from Rwanda and Burundi in the Kivu provinces. Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi called for a national mobilization, and the deputy prime minister for defense Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita said that there will be no negotiations with M23. The leader of the rebel coalition, Corneille Nangaa, said that the group intends to continue all the way to the national capital Kinshasa.
Background
Goma has a population of around two million and is the provincial capital of North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), being the largest city in the province. The Rwandan-backed rebel group March 23 Movement (M23), as part of their military offensive which has been ongoing since 2022, seized large amounts of territory in both the North and South Kivu provinces throughout January 2025. The amount of territory being seized and the speed of which it was happening prompted the United Nations (UN) to warn the offensive could lead to a larger regional war. Rwanda officially denies aiding the rebel group with troops and weapons, although intelligence suggests that Rwanda is supporting M23. A United Nations report in 2024 noted that Rwanda's military assistance had been "critical" to M23's campaign. The M23 movement, which originated in 2009 from militiamen formerly aligned with the Congolese army, briefly occupied Goma for several days during its 2012 campaign before withdrawing from the city because of international pressure on Rwanda. The group was defeated militarily in 2013 with the assistance of the UN's Force Intervention Brigade and lost most of its territory in the eastern DRC before having a resurgence in 2022.
The Congolese government has described M23 as a terrorist organization that is used by Rwanda to exploit mineral resources in the eastern DRC and refused to negotiate with its leaders directly, as Rwandan president Paul Kagame and his government had insisted in December 2024 and January 2025. In December 2024, the Congolese government also filed a lawsuit in a European court against the company Apple, accusing it of using illegally mined minerals from Congo to make electronics. Coltan, which is used to make components in smartphones and laptops, is present in large quantities in the eastern DRC, and the conflict there has been described for years as being driven by the desire to secure this resource. Over the previous two decades UN investigators accused other countries, particularly Rwanda, of funding militia groups in the country, notably including the March 23 Movement. According to the UN, between April and December 2024 the M23 rebel group has made $800 million in revenue related to coltan mining. M23 illegally exports coltan and other minerals through Rwanda.
M23 and Rwandan president Paul Kagame claim that the group represents the interests of Tutsis, an ethnic minority in the DRC, which had previously been the target of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Rwanda's government also noted that during the Kivu conflict in eastern Congo the Congolese military has worked with the FDLR, an ethnic Hutu militia whose members had committed the 1994 genocide in Rwanda against Tutsis and moderate Hutus. M23 has stated previously that its goal is to fight the FDLR. However, this claim has been subject to significant scrutiny. Critics argue that M23 and Rwanda have used the presence of the FDLR as a pretext for pursuing broader political and economic ambitions in the region, particularly given that the FDLR no longer poses a substantial threat to Rwanda. Congolese politician Corneille Nangaa, formerly the head of the country's electoral commission, declared his opposition to the administration of President Félix Tshisekedi in 2023 over political disagreements related to his 2018 election and formed a coalition of rebel forces known as the Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo; AFC), which includes M23. The coalition was established at a meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in August 2023, consisting of multiple political parties and armed groups, most notably M23.
Negotiations mediated by Angola between the DRC and Rwanda led to the signing of a ceasefire agreement in August 2024, but the deal broke down as fighting resumed with M23 on 20 October 2024. Known as the Luanda process, the Angolan-mediated talks had the support of the European Union and the United States, but a planned summit between Presidents Tshisekedi and Kagame on 15 December, aimed at discussing the neutralization of the FDLR, was canceled after Rwanda's delegation refused to attend. This refusal raised suspicions that Rwanda's actions in the DRC were motivated more by economic interests, particularly in the Kivu region's mineral wealth, rather than genuine security concerns. Tshisekedi refused the Rwandan demand that his government negotiates directly with M23. That month the fighting in the Kivu region between Congolese security forces and M23 escalated.
On January 21, the provincial governor of the South Kivu providence, Jean-Jacques Purusi, confirmed the capture of the mining towns of Minova, Lumbishi, Numbi, and Shanje in South Kivu, and Bweremana in North Kivu; Minova previously served as a key supply route into Goma from South Kivu. Additionally, these advances by M23 extended their control over more territory with coltan, cassiterite, and gold. The fighting in the eastern DRC since the start of 2025 caused 400,000 people to be displaced in North and South Kivu. Among these, 34,000 went to already overcrowded refugee camps in and outside of Goma.
Offensive
January 23–25: Initial advance to Goma
M23 captured Sake, a town and critical road junction west of Goma that connected the city to the rest of country, from the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) on January 23. This allowed them to cut off its main supply line and removed the last FARDC stronghold before Goma. The Rwandan-backed group also controlled territory to the north, and began its offensive against the city itself on the same day. The quick success of the operation to cut off Goma indicated that FARDC morale and defenses in the region were breaking, causing fears of an impending fall of Goma, and Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi returned from his foreign trip early. An official statement from M23 on January 24 said that the group will "liberate our compatriots in Goma." One Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed in Sake.
On January 24, the DRC officially severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda as the fighting escalted, with two South African peacekeepers being killed and allegedly a Rwandan sniper killing Peter Cirimwami Nkuba, the military governor of the North Kivu province, on the front line. Rwandan officials were demanded to cease all diplomatic and consular activities as well as leave Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, within 48 hours. Rwanda evacuated its only diplomat in the Congolese capital, and the DRC also recalled all of its diplomatic staff from Rwanda. The Congolese foreign minister, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, described Rwanda's military support for M23 a "declaration of war."
Congolese military spokesman General Sylvian Ekenge told the press on January 25 that "Rwanda is determined to seize the city of Goma". As the rebel group approached the city, the Rwandan army amassed troops along its border with the DRC and its senior commanders arrived in Gisenyi, a Rwandan city less than a mile away from the border. Some Rwandan troops crossed onto the Congolese side to assist M23, reportedly intending to capture Goma before the UN Security Council meeting planned for the following day. UN sources have reported that the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) has de facto operational control over M23.
January 25–30: Battle in the city
Early in the morning of January 25, M23 advanced on the outskirts of Goma alongside heavy bombardments, but advances were reportedly pushed back by DRC forces. On the outskirts of the city, hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced, especially due to the bombardments. M23 closed the airspace around Goma International Airport. Order in the city itself had reportedly not broken down, with a heavy police presence since the beginning of the offensive. The Congolese armed forces (FARDC) set up a defensive line in the northern part of the city and the Birere area, including tanks, and are assisted by Romanian mercenaries and the "Wazalendo" local pro-government militia. A Romanian private military company had been hired by the government to provide training for the Congolese army, and was also used to guard important locations outside Goma. The FARDC fought off the initial M23 attack on January 25. One Uruguayan peacekeeper was killed.
By the evening of January 26, the rebels were reported to have pushed through the Munigi neighborhood, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) from the Goma city center, which was defended by the FARDC and foreign peacekeeping forces. M23 claimed that the city was under their control. Thirteen peacekeepers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the UN were initially reported killed in the fighting over the previous days; among the dead were seven South Africans and three Malawians from the SADC mission in the DRC, and two South Africans and one Uruguayan from MONUSCO. It was later determined that twenty peacekeepers had been killed during the Goma offensive, including fourteen South Africans and two Tanzanians.
The city was cut off from electricity. Bintou Keita, UN special representative in Congo, told the Security Council that M23 were using civilians as human shields. According to rebel leader Corneille Nangaa, after negotiations with some government troops M23 allowed army officers to leave Goma by boat across Lake Kivu for Bukavu, in the South Kivu province. To avoid the fighting in the outskirts of Goma some 300,000 people living in the refugee camps there entered the city itself.
On January 27, M23 claimed the capture of the city. However, fighting continued in several parts and "tens of thousands" of people were displaced. The city's jail with 3,000 inmates was "literally torched" and the jailbreak resulted in fatalities. More than 4,000 prisoners escaped from Muzenze prison. It was reported that hundreds of female inmates were raped and burned alive during the mass jailbreak from Goma's prison. Rebel fighters reached the center of Goma that morning. A spokesman for the rebel coalition claimed that Congolese army soldiers were surrendering, though the army did not comment. According to Uruguayan peacekeepers, 100 Congolese soldiers surrendered and handed over their weapons at the MONUSCO base as the rebels had demanded, while 26 Congolese troops and one police officer surrendered to Rwandan border guards near Goma. Some Congolese soldiers changed out of their uniforms and surrendered at the Rwandan border or took refuge in the peacekeeping bases.
The government claimed later that morning that its troops are still holding the Goma International Airport and other key points in the city. Agence France Press reported that the Congolese army and its allied militias put up "unexpected resistance" against better equipped and trained Rwandan and Rwandan-backed rebel forces, during intense fighting in the city center and western Goma, although some deserted and abandoned their uniforms. Congolese soldiers and militiamen had also been involved in looting, along with part of the civilian population. Looting was reported in Birere, Majengo, and near the airport. The FARDC and the Rwandan forces on the other side of the border also exchanged artillery fire, with Congolese troops on Mount Goma, a hill in the city, firing at the Rwandan town of Gisenyi.
As of the evening of January 27, the FARDC and Wazalendo militia still held some parts of the city, according to president of the National Assembly Vital Kamerhe. Combat was taking place near the airport and surrounding areas. Electricity and water have been shut off since the start of the fighting. An emergency meeting of the government was held by President Félix Tshisekedi. At least 17 people were reported killed during the fighting in Goma, while 367 others were injured. Additionally, five people were killed while 25 others were injured in the neighboring city of Gisenyi, across the border in Rwanda, in an incident related to the fighting.