The Rwanda Defence Force has been accused of backing the M23 armed group to carry out forced recruitment and abusive detention of thousands of captured combatants and civilians in eastern DR Congo, between mid-2024 and December 2025.
The Human Rights Watch, disclosed this on Wednesday, in a 78-page report, documenting large-scale arrests in North and South Kivu provinces in eastern DR Congo, as well as abuses against detainees at the Rumangabo and Tshanzu training camps in North Kivu.
The report said that researchers found that the M23 fighters, backed by the Rwandan soldiers, committed murder, torture, corporal punishment, and used forced labour and child soldiers.
It added that such atrocities were war crimes and should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity.
According to the report, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch, Clémentine de Montjoye, stated that, The Rwandan-backed M23 is running so-called training camps in eastern Congo, where recruits have suffered abuse and torture, at times with deadly consequences. Regional bodies and partner governments should press Rwanda’s authorities to stop these grave abuses and support accountability for those responsible.”
Human Rights Watch, in the report, stated that it interviewed 102 escaped former detainees from the Rumangabo and Tshanzu camps, others who were deployed with the M23, or later surrendered to the Congolese army, witnesses to abuses, as well as United Nations, M23, military, intelligence, media, diplomatic sources, former detainees in Uganda and several towns in Congo and by phone in M23-controlled areas.
The organisation also stated that the report also drew on verified, geolocated videos and photographs, satellite imagery of Rumangabo and Tshanzu camps, and 3D reconstruction to estimate the number of people loaded onto trucks.
It stated, “Since 2024, the M23 has carried out forced recruitment drives among both civilians and captured combatants, Human Rights Watch found. After the armed group captured large swaths of territory and key eastern cities in 2025, these efforts increased in areas under their control. Thousands of Congolese soldiers, Wazalendo militia allied with national forces, police, and civilians—including children as young as 12—were recruited, sometimes voluntarily, although often forcibly.
“M23 fighters set up ambushes and checkpoints on roads, apprehended people at hospitals, churches, and schools, and summoned residents under false pretenses or with threats before transporting them in trucks to the two camps. People in the camps were beaten and lacked adequate food, water, medicine, and health care.
Alleging that former detainees described summary executions and beatings of people who tried to escape the training centres or who drank water, ate food, or relieved themselves without permission, the Human Rights Watch quoted a civilian held for five months, as saying, “If we were caught trying to drink from puddles on the ground, the guards beat us violently.”
A former detainee, held at Tshanzu said, “I was just a student, I had never seen a dead body before. They made me bury bodies seven times, we put them in a big grave.”
According to the report, the M23 fighters held children at Tshanzu camp for training and forced labour and selected some for guard duty and to beat other detainees.
Noting that the total number of camp deaths could only be determined if all mass graves were found and excavated, former detainees howver indicated that more than hundreds died from the harsh conditions, beatings, and executions in both camps throughout 2025.
The former detainees said they identified Rwandan soldiers during roundups and among the trainers and commanders in the camps because of their uniforms, equipment, accents, and inability to speak French or Kiswahili, not widely spoken in Rwanda.
The Human Rights Watch stated that though military, intelligence, and UN sources confirmed the involvement of Rwandan forces in the atrocities, the Rwandan government and M23 officials denied the allegations but failed to investigate.
The report also stated that other armed groups, including some supported by Rwanda, engaged in forced recruitment and the use of child soldiers in eastern Congo, but over the years, neither Congo nor Rwanda took action against the crimes.
“In May 2026, Human Rights Watch conducted phone interviews and visited Makala prison in Kinshasa, the capital, where scores of civilians forcibly recruited by the M23 and later surrendered to Congolese forces are detained. Thirty-four detainees, including fourteen children, said Congolese military intelligence held and interrogated them for several days to a month after they surrendered before transferring them to Makala. On June 9, Human Rights Watch wrote to Congo’s justice and defense ministers seeking information about the legal basis for their detention and other issues,” it added.
The HRW therefore urged Rwanda’s international partners, including the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and their member states, as well as the United States, to publicly address the abuse and impunity in eastern Congo and review military assistance and cooperation programs with Rwanda to ensure they were not fueling further serious violations.
The group urged them to impose further targeted sanctions against M23, Rwandan commanders and officials responsible for abuses, while advising DR Congo’s judicial authorities to seek to preserve evidence of crimes committed in Rumangabo and Tshanzu as well as bring appropriate prosecutions.
It also appealed to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Rwandan and M23 forces in the context of forced recruitment campaigns and the detention of recruits in their training camps.
“Concerned governments need to show that the atrocities being committed by Rwanda and the M23 in their training camps require urgent action to stop them and show no one is beyond the reach of justice,” the senior Great Lakes researcher noted.
