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Congolese journalist Paul Ntumba woke up on January 18 to the news that the M23 rebel military group had launched a new offensive to expand its territory in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
For the director of a radio station in the rebel-controlled town of Rutshuru, in the North Kivu province, this new offensive only meant more censorship, more threats, and a more uncertain future.
“I have lost two members of my family,” says the forty-year-old Ntumba (whose name we’ve changed to protect his safety). “The presence of M23 rebels in eastern DRC has curtailed the movement of journalists, jeopardized their safety, and stifled their liberty. We face difficult working conditions: programs undergo censorship, forcing some media organs to completely shut down.”
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been unstable since the 1960s, and the revolt by the M23 in its eastern region remains one of the major security challenges facing the country in recent decades.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide fueled much of this conflict, as genocidaires and victims both fled Rwanda at different times, leading to large refugee populations inhabiting the eastern DRC. These refugee populations reacted to a lack of strong governance in this remote section of the country by building militias.
Prominent non-state armed groups in the region include the M23, the FDLR (the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), and the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF. The M23, a Tutsi-led group—whose name stands for the March 23 Movement—reemerged from dormancy in November 2021, and accused the DRC of ignoring a promise to integrate its fighters into the army.
Refugees have joined these groups in hopes of economic gain or due to ideological fervor. The governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi have supported the different groups at various points, using them as proxies for each state’s interests in the region.
Rwanda has been accused by DRC officials of supporting the M23; Rwanda accuses Uganda, the DRC, and Burundi of supporting the FDLR; Burundi accuses Rwanda of supporting RED-Tabara; Uganda accuses Rwanda of supporting the Allied Democratic Forces.
The latest M23 offensive has been met with international opprobrium as it violates a ceasefire agreement between Rwanda and the DRC established through the Luanda Peace Process.
On January 27, the M23 rebels said they had taken control of Goma, a city of roughly two million people. This came a day after the UN peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, called on them to cease their activities and withdraw from occupied territory.
Ntumba fled Goma the same day the M23 rebels claimed control of the city, seeking refuge in Kiwanja, a community seventy-five kilometers from Goma.
The government has prohibited journalists from disseminating M23-related content. The M23 rebels, for their part, persecute journalists who broadcast content that favors the Congolese government’s discourse. Ntumba has repeatedly been accused by each side of supporting the other.
“The first time, I was questioned by a colonel of the M23 who told me the radio station I manage was broadcasting hate messages, which was not true. The second time, it was the [government] intelligence services, who arrested me with another journalist in Goma when I was going to Rutshuru [a rebel-controlled area]. After an hour of questioning, I was released after posting bail,” Ntumba recalls.
The third time, Ntumba says, was when he was summoned by an M23 spokesperson, who made startling allegations against him.
“He accused me of telling my reporters not to work with the M23. I was told to choose between working with them and vacating the area,” Ntumba tells CJR.
“The fourth time was when an agent of the General Directorate of Migration of the DRC stopped me from my journey to Rwanda on January 26, 2025, confiscated my passport, and threatened to arrest me after seeing Kiwanja/Rutshuru written as the place of residence. He told me: ‘You journalists have never been reliable people.’ Again, I was forced to post bail.”
The same day, upon arriving at the DRC-Uganda border, Ntumba was held for several hours by the M23 migration service, and only released after hours of questioning. “Despite practicing self-censorship, we are still under a lot of pressure,” he says.
Ntumba’s story is unfortunately all too common for many journalists working in the war-torn eastern DRC. Eugene Amani, a Congolese journalist with Panier des Infos, a local online news outfit, and Sauti Ya Wahami—a news bulletin run by displaced journalists for displaced people in the country—says he now works under a high risk of arrest, interrogation, and kidnapping.
One day, Amani recalls, he and his peers were intimidated by a group of armed men who accused them of being “accomplices of enemies of the state.” “It took an intervention from a local leader for us to be released,” he tells CJR.
“They even forbade us from alerting journalists’-rights defense organizations and threatened to come back for our heads if we did.” And that was not all. “A journalist was arrested and falsely accused of siding with the M23. Later, during a report in an IDP [internally displaced persons] camp, we were tagged enemies of the state by an armed group, which threatened to arrest us,” according to Amani.
Amani was overwhelmed by fear when he learned of the M23 march on Goma. “I should have left Goma for safety by now if I had the means,” he says. “But lack of means only means one is forced to stay and will be subjected to the rules of M23 if it finally captures the city.”
Nearly three thousand people have been killed in Goma since the conflict escalated, according to the UN. At least six million people have died in the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1996, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in world history. The conflict has also displaced over five million Congolese, engendering a cycle of poverty and militarization.
“Journalists working in these areas are not so different from those working in Sudan, Ukraine, or Gaza, but they are unique in Congolese regulations,” Josaphat Musamba, a Congolese doctoral researcher at Ghent University (Belgium) who is based in the eastern DRC city of Bukavu, tells CJR.
In terms of access to combat theaters, journalists from Goma, Bukavu, or Bunia have difficulty reporting live. “Many are faced with these limitations and prohibitions—only those who work with the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo [FARDC] report live in theaters of operations,” according to Musamba.
He said that Congolese journalists are today faced with insecurity, difficult access to information, and inadequate support. “Some are also threatened by the rebels for divulging secrets or revealing hidden truths,” Musamba says.
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