# UN warns of regional escalation as M23 advances on Goma
By IO Digest Desk
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called on Rwandan forces to withdraw from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 2025-01-26 as M23 rebels pressed their offensive toward Goma, the capital of North Kivu province in the country’s east.
In the statement cited in the evidence packet, Guterres “reiterates his strongest condemnation” of the M23 offensive and the group’s advance on Goma with the support of the Rwanda Defence Forces. He called on M23 to stop hostile actions and withdraw from occupied areas, and said the Rwanda Defence Forces should cease support for the rebels and leave Congolese territory.
The diplomatic pressure was building alongside a fast-moving military crisis. The DRC accused Rwanda of sending troops across the border and described the situation as a declaration of war. Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said more Rwandan troops had crossed border posts near Goma and that the incursion was a deliberate violation of sovereignty. She called for targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans.
The fighting was also drawing in other international actors. France and the United Kingdom pressed Rwanda over its role in the crisis, with France’s UN ambassador calling for Rwandan withdrawal and the UK demanding an end to attacks on peacekeepers by M23 rebels said to be receiving Rwandan support.
The human cost was already severe. The evidence packet says 13 UN peacekeepers were killed in the fighting, including nine South Africans, three Malawians and a Uruguayan peacekeeper. In a separate mission, seven other South African soldiers and three Malawian soldiers were also killed that week.
On the ground, M23 fighters were closing in on Goma, forcing thousands of civilians to flee and grounding flights from the local airport. By mid-afternoon they were approaching the airport, and officials said flights were no longer operating. The UN told staff in Goma to stay away from the airport and shelter in place.
The DRC also severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda as the offensive intensified. That step reflected the collapse of trust between the two governments and the deepening fear that a local battlefield was turning into a regional crisis.
Eastern Congo has long been a tinderbox of armed factions, but the current conflict has now reached a more dangerous scale. The evidence packet says the rebels had made more gains than ever before in three years of conflict, and that the region’s long-running instability is rooted in the aftermath of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
The rebels say they exist to protect Congo’s ethnic Tutsi population. The DRC and the UN accuse Rwanda of backing them; Kigali denies it. Those competing narratives matter, but they did not change the immediate facts on the ground on 2025-01-26: civilians were fleeing, peacekeepers were dying and the city of Goma was moving closer to an all-out takeover.
For the UN chief, the message was unmistakable. The offensive had to stop, foreign support had to end and the territorial integrity of the DRC had to be preserved before the crisis spread further.
