Rwandan backed rebels 'seize' Goma in mineral-rich eastern Congo

Rwandan backed rebels said they had captured Goma, the largest city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and a key cog in the region's minerals trade, with implications for the flow of transition metals and oil exploration efforts in the area.

The apparent seizure of the city by the M23 rebel group marks a major escalation in the long-running conflict driven by a battle for resources and simmering ethnic tensions.

The mostly-Tutsi M23 emerged in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and has long battled ethnic Hutus in eastern Congo's North Kivu province. The UN and Western powers accuse Rwanda of supporting the rebels, which have plundered the region of in-demand minerals.

"We strongly condemn the ongoing offensive led by the M23 with the active support of Rwanda," said France's permanent representative to the UN, Nicolas de Riviere. Kigali denies supporting the group, despite allegations from UN experts that it has deployed thousands of troops and provided heavy weapons.

Some Western diplomats have branded the group "Rwanda's Wagner", a reference to the Russian mercenary force trading security for commodities in Africa.

The DRC boasts enormous mineral wealth -- valued by the US Agency for International Development at $24 trillion -- including globally significant deposits of copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum and lithium. These precious metals have grown in importance in recent years due to their role in manufacturing wind turbines, solar panels and EV batteries.

While the country's vast copper and cobalt resources lie in the south and are unaffected, eastern Congo is rich in gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten, mostly mined in relatively small artisanal mines.

Goma itself is a key transit point for these metals. According to the International Tin Association, some 200 to 250 tons of tin concentrate move through Goma monthly, with the Goma customs crossing between DRC and Rwanda a key route to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam and on to international markets.

Since 2022, the M23 rebels have controlled areas in the corridor between Lake Edward and Lake Kivu, at times disrupting flows, according to the ITA. Experts say precious metals have long been smuggled out of North Kivu into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, a charge the countries deny.

The DRC -- which has not confirmed the capture of Goma -- is also an emerging oil and gas producer, with Anglo-French independent Perenco pumping some 20,000 b/d of crude from its Coastal Basin. An upcoming but long delayed auction will see the DRC market blocks in eastern regions, including near Goma.

Meanwhile, Congolese and Rwandan officials have long co-operated on potential oil development in Lake Kivu, with Rwanda's government recently announcing it had found "hydrocarbon occurrences" in the largely unexplored basin.

The Congo Basin, known as "the lungs of Africa", is also viewed as potentially vital from a carbon market perspective, absorbing more carbon than the rainforests of the Amazon and Indonesia. It is therefore an appealing prospect for carbon credit projects in the voluntary carbon market.

M23 rebels seized Goma back in 2012 but withdrew within days following a multilateral agreement involving neighboring countries.