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After 19 months, the insurgency of the Congolese armed group M23 ended on Tuesday 5 November, with the group declaring that they would employ political means to achieve their goals in the future. The day before, the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), supported by the UN Intervention Brigade, had taken most of M23’s strongholds. This followed two weeks of heavy fighting with the group.
The end of the M23 insurgency does not mean that the displacement crisis is over. While some IDPs in North Kivu province have already expressed a wish to return, or even started to do so, others - many of whom have been displaced several times or for long periods - are hesitant to do so due to fears for their security. More still have fled their homes following M23’s announced surrender, for fear of retaliation attacks against perceived collaborators. The needs of these communities remain particularly high.
Estimates place the number of people displaced by fighting between the M23 and government forces as high as 800,000. However, while the M23 has been one of the main drivers of internal displacement in North Kivu province over the last two years, it is by no means the only source of displacement in eastern DRC. Violence and human rights violations committed by other armed groups, local self-defence militia and armed forces, in addition to unresolved land and inter-communal conflicts, localised natural disasters as well as mining and development projects all contribute to the staggering 2.7 million people currently living in displacement across entire swathes of eastern DRC.
