Congo’s Latest Peace Roadmap Has Already Hit Familiar Hurdles

Last summer, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed a US-brokered peace accord and incorporated it into the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity in December.

The fighting continued.

For many Congolese, that’s nothing new. Each effort to end decades of deadly conflict involving Rwanda and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels inspires a new spark of hope, then the all-too-familiar disappointment. This time around, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels continued to violently expand their hold on Congolese territory in the east of the country.

“When they went to sign the agreement, we were happy because we thought the war would come to an end,” Delphin Kulongwa, a resident of M23-held Goma, told Africanews in June. “But on the ground, it’s the opposite. We continue to suffer.”

Alongside the Washington Accords, a separate Qatari-mediated process launched in April 2025 …