DR Congo and M23 rebels to hold peace talks in Angola on March 18

# DR Congo and M23 rebels to hold peace talks in Angola on March 18

Event date: 2025-03-12. Angola says it will host direct peace talks between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s government and the M23 rebel movement, ending a long period in which Kinshasa refused to negotiate with the armed group.

The evidence packet says Angolan President João Lourenço confirmed that the two sides will meet in Luanda on March 18. Until now, Congolese officials had declined to engage directly with M23, insisting that Rwanda was the real aggressor and should be the party at the table.

That position had already complicated an earlier mediation effort in December, when peace talks collapsed after Rwanda demanded that Congo negotiate with M23. The new announcement suggests Angola has at least temporarily bridged that procedural dispute, even if it has not solved the underlying conflict.

The timing is grim. The packet says the conflict escalated in January when M23 seized the mineral-rich city of Goma in eastern Congo. The group has been active in the region since 2012, and Rwanda has long been accused of backing it, though Kigali continues to deny the allegations.

The human toll is still contested, but it is clearly severe. Congolese Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka told the BBC that at least 7,000 people had been killed in the last two months, though the packet notes that figure has not been independently verified. Even without that number, the violence has clearly intensified.

The source also says M23 has been accused by Human Rights Watch of attacking journalists and media workers, allegations the political-military organization associated with the movement denies. That matters because it suggests the conflict is not only about territory and resources but also about the wider collapse of civilian space in eastern Congo.

Angola’s role is that of a mediator trying to keep the process alive after previous efforts stalled. The packet does not provide a detailed agenda for the March 18 talks, nor does it say whether Rwanda will participate directly. But the shift from no talks to scheduled talks is significant in itself.

For Congo’s government, the challenge is whether entering the room weakens its insistence that Rwanda is the real party responsible. For Angola, the test will be whether the meeting produces more than a photo opportunity. For civilians in eastern Congo, the only meaningful result would be a reduction in the violence that has repeatedly swallowed towns, roads and lives.