DRC Picks Mercenaries to Counter M23 Threat

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has reportedly hired thousands of mercenaries to help in fending off the M23 rebels operating in the eastern part of the vast and mineral-rich country.

Officials working with United Nations organisations in DRC told ChimpReports that they received reports that an estimated 2,000 mercenaries from Romania and Bulgaria arrived in different parts of North Kivu to help government forces counter the M23 rebel threat.

Last October, the Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi, in an interview with the “Financial Times”, ruled out the possibility of employing mercenaries to defeat the M23 rebels. 

“I know it’s fashionable now but no, we don’t need to use mercenaries,” said Tshisekedi on the sidelines of the Africa Summit in London.

 “I don’t even know where to find them,” he joked. 

However, this is not the first time DR Congo is being accused of hiring mercenaries to counter militants in North Kivu. 

In late January, M23 rebels seized several towns around Sake, a strategic town located about 20 kms from the provincial city of Goma. 

However, the insurgents failed to seize Sake airport that would have undermined Congolese forces’ ability to stem the rebels’ further advance. 

An investigation report released in June 2023 by the United Nations Group of Experts on DRC said the military contractors from Congo Protection hired by Kinshasa kept the rebels’ advance at bay.

“In late January and again late February 2023, when Sake town was threatened by M23, Congo Protection informed the Group that the instructors would not adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude if the Sake area, where the FARDC training camps were located, was attacked or threatened by M23,” the UN report reads in part.

“Indeed, on 9 and 10 February 2023 and again in early March 2023 when M23 approached Sake, the instructors and the trainees manned defence posts in Sake and de facto prevented M23 from further advancing,” it added.

Currently, the M23 rebels are battling several Congolese government-aided militant groups for control of strategic towns such as Kolirwe, Kitchanga and Nyiragongo in North Kivu.

Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of helping M23 rebels, a claim Kigali denies. 

Rwanda also blames DRC for arming and fighting alongside FDLR, a militia group whose past leadership and ideology are blamed for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The security situation in North Kivu has sharply deteriorated in recent weeks with thousands of innocent civilians being displaced from their homes. 

Kagame on mercenaries 

In January 2023, as the M23 rebellion intensified with the insurgents capturing settlements from Congolese soldiers, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame warned the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against hiring “mercenaries”.

Reports had indicated that DRC President Felix Tshisekedi intended to hire thousands of mercenaries to attack M23 rebels and Rwanda. 

“When you hear the situation is relying on mercenaries, you know that situation is a mess,” said Kagame while addressing lawmakers at the Parliament Buildings.

“When it comes to us dealing with mercenaries, we really are overstocked to deal with mercenaries,” he said, adding, “mercenaries are the most useless people you can rely on.”

Military contractors 

According to the UN, in July 2022, the Maison Militaire, led by General Franck Ntumba, concluded an agreement with a newly created Congolese enterprise, Agemira RDC, headed by Olivier Bazin, a French-Congolese national. 

Agemira RDC employed Bulgarian, Belarusian, Georgian, Algerian, French and Congolese nationals, of which 35 were deployed in eastern DRC and 35 in Kinshasa. 

Agemira RDC was contractually engaged in three domains: refurbishing and increasing the DRC’s military air assets;  rehabilitating airports in eastern DRC (Bukavu/Kavumu and Beni); and ensuring the physical security of aircraft and strategic locations. 

Under the third domain of the contract, Agemira RDC had been tasked to and did provide strategic advice and direction to FARDC when the latter was engaged in operations against M23 in North Kivu Province.

On 24 November 2022, a contract was concluded between Congo Protection, a Congolese company represented by Thierry Kongolo, and “Association RALF”, a Romanian enterprise with “ex-Romanians from the French Foreign Legion” represented by its founding president, Horatiu Potra. 

The agreement which was concluded for a 12-month period specifies that “the Contractor [RALF] has expertise and extensive experience in the provision of security management services that are essential to the Company [Congo Protection] and [that] the Contractor agreed to make its experience available to the Company to provide training and instruction to the FARDC ground troops of the Contracting Authority by means of a contingent of 300 instructors.”

Officially, Congo Protection’s mandate does not go beyond training and instructing FARDC units. 

However, according to UN researchers, on the ground, Congo Protection’s ex-military personnel also guard Goma airport and were to be deployed to Bukavu to protect Kavumu airport. 

The UN investigation Group earlier this year said it had received information from several sources, including DRC government, that the DRC authorities planned to send 2,500 military contractors from Colombia, Mexico and Argentina to North Kivu to stop the advance of M23, and that three South African nationals were present from 15 March to mid-April 2023 to prepare for the arrival of these 2,500 military contractors and coordinate their actions and operations in North Kivu. 

While several sources informed the UN that the sending of the contractors followed a bilateral agreement concluded between the DRC and the United Arab Emirates, the UAE denied the existence of such an agreement.

The UN researchers said they were informed that in mid-April 2023, the plan to send 2,500 military contractors was (temporarily) halted.