Exam-period violence flares as M23 and Wazalendo fight in Masisi and Rutshuru

# Exam-period violence flares as M23 and Wazalendo fight in Masisi and Rutshuru

On 2025-07-28, Radio Okapi reported that fighting between AFC/M23 rebels and Wazalendo militias was again disrupting life in North Kivu, this time in several localities across Rutshuru and Masisi territories. The clashes came as state examination sessions were under way, forcing local authorities to improvise around the insecurity.

In Masisi Territory, the report said gunfire was heard in Shoa and Shamarambo in Buabo groupement from the morning. Those clashes followed exchanges around Luke and Nyabiondo in Osso Banyungu sector. Local sources said the combat involved PARECO and ACLS of January Karairi on one side and AFC/M23 on the other, showing that the fighting in the area was not limited to a single armed network.

The educational impact was immediate. At least two examination centers originally planned for Luke were moved to Kinigi in the neighboring Mufuni Kibabi groupement to reduce the risk to candidates. The article says that shift was a direct response to the active fighting, and it illustrates how the conflict keeps forcing institutions to work around the front line rather than outside it.

The source also reported fighting in Rutshuru Territory, including the villages of Mashango and Mudugudu. There, the clashes were linked to confrontations between AFC/M23 and Wazalendo fighters from the Collective of Movements for Change, or CMC. Several villages in the area were emptied as residents fled into the bush, underscoring the scale of the disruption.

Two other exam centers had to be relocated in that part of Rutshuru. Birambizo was moved to Nyanzale, while Bambo was transferred to Tongo. Those decisions suggest the violence was affecting more than one school cluster and that officials were reacting to a broad pattern of insecurity rather than a single incident.

Radio Okapi framed the episode as a threat to peace efforts already under way in Doha and Washington. That assessment is important because the report does not describe the July 28 fighting as a peripheral event. Instead, it presents it as part of a recurring cycle in which armed actors continue to contest territory while civilian life is adjusted around them.

The article does not provide an official casualty count. It also does not include a direct military response from the Congolese authorities or from the armed groups. But the evidence is enough to establish a clear pattern: multiple clashes, displaced civilians, relocated school centers and a widening sense that insecurity is shaping public life in North Kivu.

For residents, the practical meaning was straightforward. Exams went ahead, but only after education officials shifted centers and families had already begun to move away from the violence. In that sense, the July 28 report captures how conflict in eastern Congo repeatedly reaches into civilian routines and leaves little space for normality.