rebels

Catatumbo, Colombia – The Catatumbo region, which stretches along the border with Venezuela in the department of Norte de Santander, is Colombia’s most volatile frontier.

Endowed with oil reserves and coca crops but impoverished and neglected, this border area has historically been a site of violent competition between armed groups fighting for territorial control.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla force, maintains a strong and organised presence, operating across the porous border with Venezuela.

It is there that some of their fighters pick up an Al Jazeera reporting team and drive us to meet their commanders.

Tensions remain high in this region. In January, thousands of people were displaced because of the fighting between the ELN and a dissident faction from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that continues to operate in some parts of the country in spite of peace agreements brokered in 2016.

The fight is over control of the territory and access to the border with Venezuela, which is a crucial way to move drugs out of the country.

Entering the area, it’s immediately apparent that the ELN is in total control here. There is no evidence of the country’s military. ELN flags decorate the sideroads, and the signs give a clear message of the way the group’s members see Colombia right now.

“Total peace is a failure,” they say.

There is also no mobile phone signal. People tell the Al Jazeera team that telephone companies do not want to pay a tax to the armed groups controlling the territory.

When President Gustavo Petro took office, he promised to implement a total peace plan with Colombia’s armed groups. But the negotiations have not been easy, especially with the ELN.

Government offcials suspended the peace talks because of the fighting in Catatumbo, but now say they are ready to reinitiate talks.

Al Jazeera meets with Commander Ricardo and Commander Silvana in a small house in the middle of the mountains. The interview has to be fast, they say, as they are concerned about a potential attack and reconnaissance drones that have been circulating in the area.

The commanders are accompanied by some of their fighters. Asked how many they have in the area, they respond, “We are thousands, and not everyone is wearing their uniforms. Some are urban guerrillas.”

The government estimates the ELN has around 3,000 fighters. But the figure could be much higher.

Commander Ricardo, who is in charge of the region, says he believes there could be a chance for peace.

“The ELN has been battling for a political solution for 30 years with various difficulties,” he says. “We believed that with Petro, we would advance in the process. But that did not happen. There’s never been peace in Colombia. What we have is the peace of the graves.”

The group and the government had been meeting in Mexico prior to the suspension of the talks. “If the accords we had in Mexico are still there, I believe our central command would agree [it] could open up the way for a political solution to this conflict”, Commander Ricardo tells Al Jazeera.

US drugs threat

But it’s not just the fight with the Colombian state that has armed groups here on alert. The United States military campaign against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific – and the US’s aggressive posture towards the government of neighbouring Venezuela – have brought an international dimension to what was once an internal Colombian conflict.

The administration of US President Donald Trump refers to these people not as guerrillas but “narco-terrorists”, and has not ruled out the possibility of attacking them on Colombian soil.

The US operation, which began in early September, has killed more than 62 people, including nationals from Venezuela and Colombia, and destroyed 14 boats and a semi-submersible.

Some of the commanders have an extradition request from the US, and the government says they are wanted criminals.

The US strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the military build-up in the region to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are seen by the ELN as another act of US imperialism.

The US government claims one of those boats belonged to the ELN. “Why don’t they capture them and show the world what they captured and what they are they trafficking?” Commander Ricardo asks. “But no, they erase them with a bomb.”

He also warns about the possibility of the ELN joining in the fight against the US. “In the hypothesis that Trump attacks Venezuela, we will have to see how we respond, but it’s not just us,” he says. “[It’s] all of Latin America because I am sure there are going to be many, many people who will grab a weapon and fight because it’s too much. The fact that the United States can step over people without respecting their self-determination has to end.”

The ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution. But over the years, it has been involved in kidnappings, killings, extortion, and drug trafficking.

Commander Silvana, who joined the group when she was a teen, says the ELN is not like other armed groups in the country.

“Our principles indicate that we are not involved in drug trafficking,” she says. “We have told this to the international community. What we have is taxes in the territories we have been controlling for over 60 years. And if there is coca, of course, we tax it, too.”

Colombia has been a crucial US ally in the region over the decades in the fight against drug trafficking. But Petro has increasingly questioned the US policy in the Caribbean, arguing that Washington’s approach to security and migration reflects out-of-date Cold War logic rather than the region’s current realities.

He has criticised the US military presence and naval operations near Venezuela, warning that such tactics risk increasing tensions instead of promoting cooperation.

Trump has accused Petro, who is a former guerrilla, of being a drug trafficker himself.

Petro responded angrily, writing on X, “Colombia has never been rude to the United States. To the contrary, it has loved its culture very much. But you are rude and ignorant about Colombia.”

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry also condemned Trump’s remarks as offensive and a direct threat to the country’s sovereignty, and vowed to seek international support in defence of Petro and Colombian autonomy.

The belligerent US approach to Venezuela and Colombia, both led by leftist presidents – and the heightened possibility of a US military intervention – risk turning a local Colombia conflict into a broader regional one.

Everyone on the ground is now assessing how they will respond if the US government gives its military the green light to attack Venezuela.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army says it will pull out of the ruby-mining town of Mogok and nearby Momeik.

An armed rebel group in Myanmar says it has reached a truce with the military-run government to stop months of heavy clashes in the country’s north.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) announced on Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with Myanmar’s government following several days of China-mediated talks in Kunming, roughly 400km (248 miles) from the Myanmar border.

Under the deal, the TNLA said it would withdraw from Mogok, the ruby-mining centre in the upper Mandalay region, and the neighbouring town of Momeik in northern part of Shan state, though it did not provide a timeline. Both rebel forces and government troops will “stop advancing” starting Wednesday, it added.

The group also said the military, which has not yet commented on the agreement, has agreed to halt air strikes.

The TNLA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army. They have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government and are loosely allied with the pro-democracy resistance groups that emerged after the army deposed the elected government and seized power in February 2021.

Since October 2023, the alliance has captured and controlled significant swaths of northeastern Myanmar and western Myanmar. The TNLA alone seized 12 towns in an offensive.

Their advance slowed following a series of China-brokered ceasefires earlier this year, allowing the army to retake major cities, including Lashio city in April and Nawnghkio in July, as well as Kyaukme and Hsipaw in October.

China is a central power broker in the civil war in Myanmar, where it has major geopolitical and economic interests.

Beijing has more openly backed the military government this year as it battles to shore up territory before an election slated for December, which it hopes will stabilise and help legitimise its rule.

However, the polls are expected to be blocked in large rebel-held areas, and many international observers have dismissed them as a tactic to mask continuing military rule.

Qatar’s foreign ministry said delegations were meeting in Doha to review the implementation of a truce signed in July.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the M23 armed group have resumed negotiations in Qatar as violence deepens in the country’s mineral-rich eastern provinces in spite of a recently signed an agreement to reach a full peace deal.

Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said delegations from Kinshasa and the M23 were meeting in Doha to review the implementation of a truce signed in July. “We’ve received the two parties here in Doha to discuss the earlier agreement,” Ansari said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

The deal, brokered by Qatar, committed both sides to a ceasefire and a path to a final settlement. Under its terms, talks were supposed to begin on 8 August and conclude by 18 August. Both deadlines passed without progress, and the agreement has faltered amid accusations of violations from both sides.

Ansari said the current discussions include plans to create a mechanism for monitoring the truce, as well as an exchange of prisoners and detainees. He added that the United States and the International Committee of the Red Cross were closely involved in supporting the talks.

The Qatar-led initiative followed a separate ceasefire agreement signed in Washington between Rwanda, who back M23, and DRC in June. But the M23 rejected that deal, demanding direct negotiations with Kinshasa to address what it called unresolved political grievances.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he ended the conflict, and several others, describing DRC as the “darkest, deepest” part of Africa and asserting that he “saved lots of lives.” On Monday, Trump claimed that nine million people were “killed with machetes” during the decades-long war, insisting, “I stopped it.”

Rights groups have dismissed Trump’s claims as misleading. “It is far from the reality to say that he has ended the war,” said Christian Rumu of Amnesty International. “People on the ground continue to experience grave human rights violations, and some of these amount to crimes against humanity,” he added, calling on Washington to accelerate efforts to secure peace.

Despite multiple ceasefire attempts, fighting has intensified in North and South Kivu provinces, forcing more than two million people from their homes this year. Human Rights Watch last week accused the M23 of carrying out ethnically targeted “mass killings,” while United Nations experts have said Rwandan forces played a “critical” role in supporting the group’s offensive.

Rwanda denies involvement, but the M23’s capture of vast areas, including the regional capital Goma earlier this year, has fuelled fears of a wider regional conflict.

The DRC’s eastern region, home to some of the world’s richest deposits of gold, cobalt, and coltan, has been devastated by years of armed conflict, with civilians bearing the brunt of atrocities despite repeated international mediation efforts.

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Rebels from M23, a rebel group backed by Rwanda, killed at least 140 people in July in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said.

The resurgence of killings of mostly Hutu civilians in at least 14 villages and farming areas near Virunga National Park in eastern DRC comes as the United States and Qatar have been working to broker peace in the region.

Human Rights Watch called the killings “executions.”

Between July 10 and 30, “M23 fighters summarily executed local residents and farmers, including women and children, in their villages, fields, and near the Rutshuru River,” Human Rights Watch said.

“Credible reports indicate the number of people killed in Rutshuru territory since July may exceed 300, among the worst atrocities by the M23 since its resurgence in late 2021,” it added.

The rebels have denied any role in these killings, calling the charges a “blatant misrepresentation of the facts,” BBC reported.

“The M23 armed group, which has Rwandan government backing, attacked over a dozen villages and farming areas in July and committed dozens of summary executions of primarily Hutu civilians,” said Clémentine de Montjoye, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Unless those responsible for these war crimes, including at the highest levels, are appropriately investigated and punished, these atrocities will only intensify.”

Witnesses said that M23 fighters told them to immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from having funerals. M23 fighters also threw bodies, including of women and children, into the Rutshuru River, Human Rights Watch said.

The mass killings appear to be part of a military campaign against opposing armed groups, especially the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, a largely Rwandan Hutu armed group created by participants in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

In the killings reported to Human Rights Watch, most victims were ethnic Hutu and some were ethnic Nande.

Rwanda has not responded to the HRW claim, but it has denied the U.N. accusations, calling them “gratuitous” and “sensational allegations.” It claims that an armed group opposed to M23 committed the killings.

Rwanda denies allegations that it provides military support to M23, which is largely made up of the Tutsi ethnic group that was targeted by Hutu militias in the genocide.

Human Rights Watch reported first-person accounts of witnesses. In one, a woman saw her husband killed by M23 fighters with a machete. The same day, “We were forced to walk toward the place where our lives were going to end,” she said. The group included about 70 women and girls. After walking all day, they were forced to sit on a riverbank to be shot at. She was only able to escape because she fell into the river without being shot.

Fighting between DRC government troops and M23 escalated in January, when the rebels captured large parts of the mineral-rich east, including the regional capital Goma.

Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes in the ongoing conflict, the United Nations says.

On June 27, DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Washington, D.C., after 30 years of conflict between the two nations.

Then on July 19, DRC and M23 rebels backed by Rwanda signed a declaration of peace after nearly four years of fighting. The rebels were not involved in the agreement in Washington but the declaration must follow the Washington Accord brokered by the United States.

As negotiations were set to resume last week, M23 walked away from the peace talks. It said Kinshasa had failed to meet commitments outlined in the deal.

Around 7 million people have been displaced in Congo, which has a population of 106 million. Rwanda also borders Uganda to the south.

The Congolese army has also accused the M23 of violating the cease-fire.

MONUSCO condemns the attacks by the ADF ‘in the strongest possible terms’, the mission’s spokesperson says.

Rebels backed by ISIL (ISIS) have killed at least 52 civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this month, according to the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) in the country, as both the DRC army and Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group accuse each other of violating a recently reached US-mediated ceasefire deal.

Attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) targeted the Beni and Lubero territories of the eastern North Kivu province between August 9 and 16, MONUSCO said on Monday, warning that the death toll could rise further.

The renewed violence comes as a separate conflict between the DRC army and the M23 group continues to simmer in the east of the country, despite a series of peace treaties signed in recent months. The government and M23 had agreed to sign a permanent peace deal by August 18, but no agreement was announced on Monday.

The latest ADF “violence was accompanied by kidnappings, looting, the burning of houses, vehicles, and motorcycles, as well as the destruction of property belonging to populations already facing a precarious humanitarian situation,” MONUSCO said. It condemned the attacks “in the strongest possible terms”, the mission’s spokesperson said.

The ADF is among several militias wrangling over land and resources in the DRC’s mineral-rich east.

Lieutenant Elongo Kyondwa Marc, a regional Congolese army spokesperson, said the ADF was taking revenge on civilians after suffering defeats by Congolese forces.

“When they arrived, they first woke the residents, gathered them in one place, tied them up with ropes, and then began to massacre them with machetes and hoes,” Macaire Sivikunula, chief of Lubero’s Bapere sector, told the Reuters news agency over the weekend.

After a relative lull in recent months, authorities said the group killed nearly 40 people in Komanda city, Ituri province, last month, when it stormed a Catholic church during a vigil and fired on worshippers, including many women and children.

The ADF, an armed group formed by former Ugandan rebels in the 1990s after discontent with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has killed thousands of civilians and increased looting and killings in the northeastern DRC.

In 2002, following military assaults by Ugandan forces, the group moved its activities to neighbouring DRC. In 2019, it pledged allegiance to ISIL.

Among the 52 victims so far this month, at least nine were killed overnight from Saturday to Sunday in an attack on the town of Oicha, in North Kivu, the AFP news agency learned from security and local sources.

A few days earlier, the ADF had already killed at least 40 people in several towns in the Bapere sector, also in North Kivu province, according to local and security sources.

In response to the renewed attacks, MONUSCO said it had strengthened its military presence in several sectors and allowed several hundred civilians to take refuge in its base.

At the end of 2021, Kampala and Kinshasa launched a joint military operation against the ADF, dubbed “Shujaa”, so far without succeeding in putting an end to their attacks.

Rights groups and survivors are accusing Myanmar’s Arakan Army rebel group of mass killings and torture of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, akin to what was once committed by the country’s military rulers.

UN rights chief Volker Turk says the violence resulted in ‘one of the largest documented death tolls’ despite a truce.

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels killed at least 319 civilians, including 48 women and 19 children, last month in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Volker Turk, UN high commissioner for human rights, said, citing “first-hand accounts”.

The violence in the Rutshuru territory of North Kivu Province produced “one of the largest documented death tolls in such attacks since the M23’s resurgence in 2022,” Turk said in a statement on Wednesday.

With Rwanda’s support, the M23 has seized swaths of the mineral-rich Congolese east from the DRC’s army since its resurgence in 2021, triggering a spiralling humanitarian crisis in a region already riven by three decades of conflict.

July’s violence came only weeks after the Congolese government and the M23 signed a declaration of principle on June 19 reaffirming their commitment to a permanent ceasefire, following months of broken truces.

“I am appalled by the attacks on civilians by the M23 and other armed groups in eastern DRC amid continued fighting, despite the ceasefire that was recently signed in Doha,” Turk said in a statement.

“All attacks against civilians must stop immediately, and all those responsible must be held to account,” he added.

Turk’s UN Human Rights Office said it had documented multiple attacks in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, in the conflict-ridden east of the country bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

In the agreement signed in Doha, the warring parties agreed to “uphold their commitment to a permanent ceasefire”, refraining from “hate propaganda” and “any attempt to seize by force new positions”.

The deal includes a roadmap for restoring state authority in eastern DRC, and an agreement for the two sides to open direct talks towards a comprehensive peace agreement.

It followed a separate agreement signed in Washington by the Congolese government and Rwanda, which has a history of intervention in the eastern DRC stretching back to the 1990s.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi are due to meet in the coming months to firm up the Washington agreement, whose terms have not yet been implemented.

Last week, the two countries agreed to a US State Department-brokered economic framework outline as part of the peace deal.

“I urge the signatories and facilitators of both the Doha and Washington agreements to ensure that they rapidly translate into safety, security and real progress for civilians in the DRC, who continue to endure the devastating consequences of these conflicts,” said Turk.

Rich in key minerals such as gold and coltan, the Congolese east has been riven by fighting between rival armed groups and interference by foreign powers for more than 30 years.

Dozens of ceasefires and truces have been brokered and broken in recent years without providing a lasting end to the conflict.

Indian media reports claim the men were linked to the April 22 Pahalgam attack, but there is no official confirmation.

Indian security forces have killed three suspected rebels in India-administered Kashmir during fighting in a national park, the military says.

The incident occurred on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km (18 miles) east of the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar.

“Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight,” the Indian army said in a statement on social media. “Operation continues.”

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the South Asian nuclear powers, which both claim Kashmir in full, have fought three wars over its control.

Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region’s merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the rebellion, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.

Indian media reports said the three men killed on Monday were suspected to be behind the April 22 attack in India-administered Kashmir’s resort town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people.

Al Jazeera could not immediately verify the involvement of the men in the April attack, which sparked a four-day military conflict with Pakistan that killed more than 70 people on both sides.

The Indian military did not immediately identify those killed on Monday, but a police officer told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that they were all “foreigners”.

This month, the United States designated The Resistance Front (TRF), the group accused of being behind the Pahalgam attack, as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Monday’s incident took place near the Hindu shrine of Amarnath, to which more than 350,000 people from across India have travelled as part of an annual pilgrimage that began on July 3.

Fighting between rebels and Indian government forces in India-administered Kashmir has drastically declined during the past five years, but many local fighters have been killed since the Pahalgam attack, according to officials.

India denies US claims

In a related development, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to any outside pressure.

Singh’s remarks during a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack effectively rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that he brokered the truce between the two neighbours.

“India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved,” Singh said. “To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect.”

New Delhi has said Pakistani nationals were involved in the Pahalgam killings. Pakistan denied involvement and sought an independent investigation.

In their military conflict in May, the two sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and other munitions, killing dozens of people, before Trump announced they had agreed to a ceasefire.

Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement, but India said the US had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting.

Indian opposition groups have questioned what they say is the intelligence failure behind the Pahalgam attack and the government’s inability to capture the assailants – issues they are expected to raise during the parliament discussion.

They have also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for coming under pressure from Trump and agreeing to end the fighting, along with reports that Indian jets were shot down during the fighting.

Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in combat, and India’s highest ranking general admitted suffering “initial losses in the air,” but declined to give details.

Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom have been sentenced for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The International Criminal Court has convicted two leaders of a predominantly Christian rebel group in the Central African Republic for multiple war crimes committed against Muslim civilians during the country’s civil war in 2013 and 2014, sentencing each to more than a decade in prison.

The former president of the CAR Football Federation, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, along with Alfred Yekatom, a rebel leader known as “Rambo,” were found guilty on Thursday of their involvement in atrocities including murder, torture and attacking civilians.

The court sentenced Yekatom to 15 years for 20 war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ngaissona received 12 years for 28 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The charges stem from their roles as senior leaders in a militia known as the anti-Balaka, which was formed in 2013 after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels stormed the capital Bangui in March of that year and toppled then-President Francois Bozize, a Christian.

The violence that ensued left thousands of civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of others. Mosques, shops and homes were looted and destroyed.

The ICC’s presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt read harrowing details in The Hague of the violence committed by the militia against suspected Seleka Muslims.

Yekatom’s men tortured one suspect by cutting off his fingers, toes, and one ear. This man’s body was never found. Others were killed and then mutilated.

Appearing in court dressed in a light brown suit and waistcoat, white shirt, and dark tie, Yekatom listened impassively as the judge read out the verdict.

Dressed in a bright blue jacket, Ngaissona nodded to the judge as his sentence was delivered.

The court found Yekatom not guilty of conscripting child soldiers and acquitted Ngaissona of the charge of rape.

Both men had pleaded not guilty to all charges laid out in the trial, which opened in 2021. It is the first case at the ICC, which began in May 2014, to focus on the violence that erupted after the Seleka seized power in the CAR in 2013.

Yekatom was extradited to The Hague in late 2018, after being arrested in the CAR for firing his gun in parliament. Ngaissona was arrested in France in December 2018 and extradited to The Hague.

The trial of an alleged Seleka commander, Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, is ongoing.

Last year, judges at the ICC unsealed another arrest warrant in the investigation. According to prosecutors, Edmond Beina commanded a group of about 100-400 anti-balaka fighters responsible for murdering Muslims in early 2014.

Separate proceedings against Beina and five others at a specially-created court are slated to begin in the CAR on Friday.

The CAR is among the poorest nations in the world and has endured a succession of civil wars and authoritarian governments since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Violence has subsided in recent years, but fighting occasionally erupts in remote regions between rebels and the national army, which is backed by Russian mercenaries and Rwandan troops.

July 19 (UPI) — The Democratic Republic of Congo and M23 rebels backed by Rwanda signed a declaration of peace after nearly four years of fighting in Central Africa.

The signing took place in Doha, Qatar, three weeks after Congo and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Washington, D.C., that didn’t involve the rebels, who emerged in 2012. There have been 30 years of conflict between the two nations.

The BBC obtained a copy of the declaration, which must follow the Washington Accords brokered by the United States.

At the White House, both sides agreed to recognize and respect each other’s territorial borders, committed to not supporting any armed groups and to establish a joint security mechanism to target militias.

And they plan to expand trade and investment opportunities, including U.S. access to critical minerals.

Massad Boulos, the U.S. special envoy for Africa, witnessed Saturday’s agreement.

In the accord brokered by Qatar officials, both sides agreed to “resolve their disputes by peaceful means” by July 9 with a final peace deal by Aug 18.

“The parties acknowledge that peace, security and stability are essential to increase development opportunities, improve living conditions and protect human dignity,” the accord said.

Also, there is a commitment to reinstate state authority in eastern Congo.

The deal took the government’s “red line” into account, including the “non-negotiable withdrawal” of M23 from occupied areas, according to DR Congo spokesman Patrick Muyatya.

But M23 negotiator Benjamin Mbonimpa said in a video the deal didn’t mention a pullout

African Union Commission Chairman Mahmoud Ali Youssouf called the declaration a “major milestone in the ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace, security, and stability in eastern DRC and the wider Great Lakes region.

Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe appeared at a signing ceremony in the White House’s Oval Office on June 27.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Qatar began negotiations with the two foreign ministers in April. The agreement was announced by the State Department on June 18.

“At least 6 million people were killed during that period of time,” Trump said at signing. “It’s incredible. And somebody said that was actually, it’s the biggest war on the planet since World War II. It’s a shame but we’re going to bring it to an end.”

Around 7 million people have been displaced in Congo, which has a population of 106 million. Rwanda’s population is 14 million. They both gained independence from Belgium in the early 1960s.

Congo has agreed to “neutralize” the rebels in eastern Congo. They are linked to perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus.

In January, M-23 rebels were aided by Rwandan forces in escalating the conflict, according to a United Nations expert panel.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The declaration has been agreed on by representatives from both sides in Doha weeks after talks in Washington.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and the M23 rebel group have signed a declaration of principles in Qatar to end fighting in eastern Congo.

The declaration was signed on Saturday between representatives from both sides in Doha.

The DRC and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have been engaged in heavy fighting, spurred by M23’s bloody January assault and capture of the DRC’s two largest cities.

The decades-long conflict has roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with M23 made up primarily of ethnic Tutsi fighters.

The fighting has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more this year while escalating the risk of a full-blown regional war.

Several of Congo’s neighbours already have troops deployed in the volatile region.

In March Qatar brokered a surprise meeting between Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame during which they called for an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire.

That led to direct talks, also in Doha, between Congo and M23.

DR Congo had previously rejected the idea of holding talks with M23, branding it a “terrorist group”, but in April, both sides pledged to work towards a ceasefire.

Talks in the US

Washington has also hosted talks between Congo and Rwanda in June.

On June 27 the two countries’ foreign ministers signed a peace deal and met with US President Donald Trump at the White House. Trump warned of “very severe penalties, financial and otherwise” if the deal is violated.

Trump also invited Tshisekedi and Kagame to Washington to sign a package of deals that Boulos dubbed the “Washington Accord”.

Speaking to reporters on July 2, Boulos said the Trump administration would “love” to hold that meeting at the end of July.

But he also said US officials hope to have a deal in Doha finalised by then.

DR Congo, the United Nations and Western powers say Rwanda is supporting M23 by sending troops and arms.

Rwanda has long denied helping M23 and says its forces are acting in self-defence against DR Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu fighters linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

French runner Lazzat held off Satono Reve to deny Japan a first triumph at Royal Ascot.

James Doyle was victorious aboard the 9-2 winner, trained by Jerome Reynier.

The jockey and winning owners Wathnan Racing, who also had the third-placed horse Flora Of Bermuda, were celebrating a double on the day after the earlier victory of Humidity in the Chesham Stakes.

Favourite Satono Reve was bidding to become the first Japanese-trained winner at the meeting after 12 previous attempts but was beaten by half a length.

As Doyle celebrated after the line, Lazzat unshipped his jockey and ran loose around the Ascot track before being caught.

Reynier was happier with Doyle than fellow jockey Flavien Prat, having described his effort on Facteur Cheval – who faded to finish sixth in Wednesday’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes – as “perhaps the worst ride given to one of my horses”.

“James knew he was never going to get beaten. He listened exactly to what we said to him,” said the trainer.

Rebel’s Romance won the Hardwicke Stakes to give Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby his first victory at Royal Ascot since 2022.

It was an eighth top-level Group One victory for the horse, ridden by William Buick.

“He was the horse we needed. I’m just glad to get one on the board in the end,” said Appleby.

Appleby’s 6-4 favourite Treanmor had earlier finished fifth behind Humidity and Rebel’s Romance was his last Ascot runner of the week.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has denied responsibility for the closure of banks and financial institutions in areas controlled by M23 rebels, citing security concerns for individuals with savings accounts in those areas.

Before the Rwanda-backed rebels took control of Goma in North Kivu and Bukavu in South Kivu, banks and other financial institutions in those regions had ceased operations.

The rebels’ reopening of the Caisse Generale d’Epagne du Congo (CADECO) has not produced the expected results but aggravated the situation, especially as CADECO branches only pay taxes to the rebel authorities.

There have been ongoing calls for the authorities in the DR Congo to reopen banks to alleviate the financial hardships faced by the population. In response, government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya explained that the banks are not closed due to the government’s decision but rather due to security concerns affecting individuals with savings accounts.

Muyaya expressed concerns during a press briefing, stating that ongoing tensions in Kivu have led to punitive measures against its populations due to the banking sector’s dysfunction. “Let them not lie to you. These people do not have the right to utilise the American dollar in any way,” he said,  emphasising the legal ramifications of engaging with movements under U.S. sanctions. 

He clarified the situation by explaining that “the banks are not closed because the government wants it, but because of how the system functions and the security conditions,” indicating that the closures are a complex issue tied to broader systemic and security problems. The government’s spokesperson says he hopes for expeditious peace initiatives to alleviate the suffering endured by the Congolese communities affected by rebel control, which he attributed to support from Rwanda.

“The President of the Republic and all of us in government are working to push all the processes going on, and this situation, the butchers in Goma, must quickly stop. I recall the necessity for all of us always to express the sentiment of support and solidarity to affected populations,” he added.

However, Joseph Kabila, a former president of the DR Congo, criticised the government for neglecting the people, particularly by disconnecting local financial institutions from the national banking network, and restricting the movement of people and goods. 

Calling for the humanisation of the living conditions in this part of the country, the former president exhorted the authorities to protect the population and insisted that “the army, justice and other structures in charge of security and order must in reality be in the service of the population and respond to their aspirations”.

The Bishops of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo also expressed their disquiet at the persistence of the multifaceted crisis affecting the DR Congo. In a statement made public on Friday, May 16, the religious leaders deplored the degradation of the political climate and the deterioration of the socio-economic situation, especially in the zones under the control of the M23/AFC rebels supported by Rwanda.

For bishops, the closure of banks and airports in the territories under the control of the M23/AFC rebels imposes precarious and challenging living conditions on several families.

Flies hovered over the blackened and swollen bodies of men and boys, lying side-by-side on a piece of tarpaulin, in blood-soaked combat fatigues, amid preparations for a rushed cremation in the Tamu district of Myanmar’s Sagaing region, bordering India.

Quickly arranged wooden logs formed the base of the mass pyre, with several worn-out rubber tyres burning alongside to sustain the fire, the orange and green wreaths just out of reach of the flames.

Among the 10 members of the Pa Ka Pha (PKP), part of the larger People’s Defence Forces (PDF), killed by the Indian Army on May 14, three were teenagers.

The PKP comes under the command of the National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s government-in-exile, comprising lawmakers removed in the 2021 coup, including legislators from Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.

It mostly assists the PDF – a network of civilian militia groups against the military government – which serves, in effect, as the NUG’s army.

The Indian Army said that on May 14, a battalion of the country’s Assam Rifles (AR) paramilitary force patrolling a border post in the northeast Indian state of Manipur, killed 10 men armed with “war-like stores” who were “suspected to be involved in cross-border insurgent activities”. The battalion, the Indian Army said, was “acting on specific intelligence”.

The Indian soldiers were stationed at the border in Chandel, a district contiguous with Tamu on the Myanmar side of the frontier. Manipur has been torn by a civil war between ethnic groups for the past two years, and Indian authorities have often accused migrants from Myanmar of stoking those tensions.

However, disputing the Indian version of the May 14 events, the exiled NUG said its cadres were “not killed in an armed encounter within Indian territory”. Instead, it said in a statement, they were “captured, tortured and summarily executed by” Indian Army personnel.

For nearly five years since the coup, political analysts and conflict observers say that resistance groups operating in Myanmar, along the 1,600km-long (994 miles) border with India, have shared an understanding with Indian forces, under which both sides effectively minded their own business.

That has now changed with the killings in Tamu, sending shockwaves through the exiled NUG, dozens of rebel armed groups and thousands of refugees who fled the war in Myanmar to find shelter in northeastern Indian states. They now fear a spillover along the wider frontier.

“Fighters are in panic, but the refugees are more worried – they all feel unsafe now,” said Thida*, who works with the Tamu Pa Ah Pha, or the People’s Administration Team, and organised the rebels’ funeral on May 16. She requested to be identified by a pseudonym.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has moved over the past year to fence the international border with Myanmar, dividing transnational ethnic communities who have enjoyed open-border movement for generations, before India and Myanmar gained freedom from British rule in the late 1940s.

“We felt safe [with India in our neighbourhood],” said Thida. “But after this incident, we have become very worried, you know, that similar things may follow up from the Indian forces.”

“This never happened in four years [since the armed uprising against the coup], but now, it has happened,” she told Al Jazeera. “So, once there is a first time, there could be a second or a third time, too. That is the biggest worry.”

‘Proactive operation or retaliation?’

On May 12, the 10 cadres of the PKP arrived at their newly established camp in Tamu after their earlier position was exposed to the Myanmar military. A senior NUG official and two locals based in Tamu independently told Al Jazeera that they had alerted the Indian Army of their presence in advance.

“The AR personnel visited the new campsite [on May 12],” claimed Thida. “They were informed of our every step.”

What followed over the next four days could not be verified independently, with conflicting versions emerging from Indian officials and the NUG. There are also contradictions in the narratives put out by Indian officials.

On May 14, the Indian Army’s eastern command claimed that its troops acted on “intelligence”, but “were fired upon by suspected cadres”, and killed 10 cadres in a gunfight in the New Samtal area of the Chandel district.

Two days later, on May 16, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of Defence said that “a patrol of Assam Rifles” was fired upon. In retaliation, they killed “10 individuals, wearing camouflage fatigues”, and recovered seven AK-47 rifles as well as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Five days later, on May 21, the Defence Ministry identified the killed men as cadres of the PKP. The ministry spokesperson further noted that “a patrol out to sanitise the area, where fence construction is under way along the [border], came under intense automatic fire”, with the intent “to cause severe harm to construction workers or troops of Assam Rifles to deter the fencing work”.

Speaking with Al Jazeera, a retired Indian government official, who has advised New Delhi on its Myanmar policy for a decade, pointed out the dissonance in the Indian versions: Did Indian soldiers respond proactively to intelligence alerts, or were they reacting to an attack from the rebels from Myanmar?

“It is difficult to make sense of these killings. This is something that has happened against the run of play,” the retired official, who requested anonymity to speak, said. The contradictions, he said, suggested that “a mistake happened, perhaps in the fog of war”.

“It cannot be both a proactive operation and retaliation.”

Al Jazeera requested comments from the Indian Army on questions around the operation, first on May 26, and then again on May 30, but has yet to receive a response.

Thura, an officer with the PDF in Sagaing, the northwest Myanmar region where Tamu is too, said, “The [PKP cadres] are not combat trained, or even armed enough to imagine taking on a professional army”.

‘Taking advantage of our war’

When they were informed by the Indian Army of the deaths on May 16, local Tamu authorities rushed to the Indian side.

“Assam Rifles had already prepared a docket of documents,” said a Tamu official, who was coordinating the bodies’ handover, and requested anonymity. “We were forced to sign the false documents, or they threatened not to give the corpses of martyrs.”

Al Jazeera has reviewed three documents from the docket, which imply consent to the border fencing and underline that the PDF cadres were killed in a gunfight in Indian territory.

Thida, from the Tamu’s People’s Administration Team, and NUG officials, told Al Jazeera that they have repeatedly asked Indian officials to reconsider the border fencing.

“For the last month, we have been requesting the Indian Army to speak with our ministry [referring to the exiled NUG] and have a meeting. Until then, stop the border fencing process,” she said.

Bewildered by the killings, Thida said, “It is easy to take advantage while our country is in such a crisis. And, to be honest, we cannot do anything about it. We are the rebels in our own country — how can we pick fights with the large Indian Army?”

Above all, Thida said she was heartbroken. “The state of corpses was horrific. Insects were growing inside the body,” she recalled. “If nothing, Indian forces should have respect for our dead.”

Border fencing anxieties

Angshuman Choudhury, a researcher focused on Myanmar and northeast India, said that conflict observers “are befuddled by these killings in Tamu”.

“It is counterintuitive and should not have happened by any measure,” he said.

The main point of dispute, the border fencing, is an age-old issue, noted Choudhary. “It has always caused friction along the border. And very violent fiction in the sense of intense territorial misunderstandings from groups on either side,” he said.

When New Delhi first moved last year to end the free movement regime, which allows cross-border movement to inhabitants, Indigenous communities across India’s northeastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh were left stunned. Members of these communities live on both sides of the border with Myanmar – and have for centuries.

Political analysts and academics note that the border communities on either side reconciled with the idea of India and Myanmar because of the freedom to travel back and forth. Erecting physical infrastructure triggers a kind of anxiety in these transnational communities that demarcation on maps does not, argued Choudhary.

“By fencing, India is creating a completely new form of anxieties that did not even exist in the 1940s, the immediate post-colonial period,” Choudhary said. “It is going to create absolutely unnecessary forms of instability, ugliness, and widen the existing fault lines.”

Last year, the Indian home minister, Amit Shah, said that border fencing would ensure India’s “internal security” and “maintain the demographic structure” of the regions bordering Myanmar, in a move widely seen as a response to the conflict in Manipur.

Since May 2023, ongoing ethnic violence between the Meitei majority and the Kuki and Naga minority communities has killed more than 250 people and displaced thousands. The state administration has faced allegations of exacerbating the unrest to strengthen its support among the Meitei population, which the government has denied.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and the Manipur state government, also under the BJP, have blamed the crisis in Manipur in part on undocumented migrants from Myanmar, whom they accuse of deepening ethnic tensions.

Now, with the killings in Tamu, Choudhary said that Indian security forces had a new frontier of discontent, along a border where numerous armed groups opposed to Myanmar’s ruling military have operated — until now, in relative peace with Indian troops.

The deaths, he said, could change the rules of engagement between Indian forces and those groups. “Remember, other rebel groups [in Myanmar] are also watching this closely,” he said. “These issues can spiral quickly.”

The 21-day army operation was part of India’s offensive against the last remaining groups of the Naxalite rebellion.

Indian security forces have killed 31 Maoist rebels in what the country’s home minister called the “biggest operation against Naxalism”.

Amit Shah said on social media on Wednesday that the operation took place on Karreguttalu Hill on the border of Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

“The hill on which the red terror once reigned, today the tricolour is flying proudly … Our security forces completed this biggest anti-Naxal operation in just 21 days and I am extremely happy that there was not a single casualty in the security forces in this operation,” he wrote on X.

India has been waging an offensive against the last remaining groups of the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist-inspired fighter movement that began in 1967.

The Karreguttalu Hills used to be the unified headquarters of several Naxalite organisations, where rebels were provided weapons and strategic training.

But the Naxalites have been fighting for what they say is the defence of the rights of the tribal people in the region.

At the group’s peak in the mid-2000s, they controlled nearly a third of the country with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the news of the success of the operation.

“This success of the security forces shows that our campaign towards rooting out Naxalism is moving in the right direction,” Modi wrote on X.

“We are fully committed to establishing peace in the Naxal-affected areas and connecting them with the mainstream of development.”

Director General Central Reserve Police Force GP Singh also said on Wednesday that the government is “committed to eliminate” Naxalism by March 31, 2026 “through relentless and ruthless operations”.

According to government data, since last year, Indian soldiers have killed at least 400 rebels.

More recently, 11 rebels were killed by Indian troops in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

In February, security forces killed 11 fighters and killed a further 30 in March.

Moreover, according to a news release by the Foreign Office, 718 Naxalites have so far surrendered in the first four months of 2025.

May 15 (UPI) — Indian security forces have killed 31 alleged Maoist rebels in what it Modi government officials called “the biggest-ever operation against Naxalism.”

The nearly three dozen accused rebels were killed during a 21-day operation in central India’s Kurraguttalu Hill region along the Chhattisgarh and Telangana state borders, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah said Wednesday in a statement on X.

“The mountain that was once ruled by red terror is now proudly flying the national flag,” Shah said.

Naxalism is a communist insurgency of oppressed peasants that was founded in 1967 against feudal landowners in Naxalbari, West Bengal. India has been fighting the insurgency ever since, and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to be “Naxal-free” by March 31 of next year.

Shah said the Kurraguttalu Hill had served as a unified headquarters for several major Naxal organizations and was not only a training center “but also a site for Naxal strategy and weapons manufacturing.”

Eighteen military personnel were injured by improvised explosive devices during the operation, which took place between April 21 and Sunday, the government said in a release. Thirty-one bodies of uniformed Naxalites were recovered following the 21-day operation, including 16 females, with 28 so far identified, it said, adding that there were 21 “encounters” with Naxalites.

A total of 214 Naxal hideouts and bunkers were destroyed during the operation. Authorities also recovered 450 improvised explosive devices, 818 barrel grenade launcher shells, detonators, explosive materials and more than 26,450 pounds of food.

“Analysis of the information obtained during this historic 21-day-long anti-Naxal operation suggests that several senior Naxal cadres were either killed or seriously injured,” the government said.

Modi said in a statement that the operation proves their campaign to “eradicate Naxalism from its roots” was progressing as planned.

“We are fully committed to not only establishing peace in the Naxal-affected areas but also integrating them into the mainstream of development,” he said.