[24] M23 and other groups are engaged in a wide range of abuses in the region: recruitment of child soldiers,[25] violence against the civilian population,[26] looting, illegal mining, and corruption.

A UN resolution stated that anyone supporting illegal Congolese armed groups through illicit trade of natural resources should be subjected to sanctions including travel restrictions and an assets freeze.

An early sign of this was the defection of three senior Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) officers – among them Laurent Nkunda – to form a political movement called RCD-Goma that morphed into the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebellion in July 2006.

[31] In 2004, Nkunda's forces began clashing with the DRC army in Sud-Kivu and occupied Bukavu for eight days in June 2004, where he was accused of committing war crimes.

[34] In 2005, Nkunda called for the overthrow of the government due to its corruption, and increasing numbers of RCD-Goma soldiers deserted the DRC army to join his forces.

[40][41][42] On 25 November, however, a day before the Supreme Court ruled that Joseph Kabila had won the presidential election's second round, Nkunda's forces undertook a sizeable offensive in Sake against the DRC army 11th Brigade,[43] also clashing with MONUC peacekeepers.

[48] In early 2007, the central DRC government attempted to reduce the threat posed by Nkunda by trying to integrate his troops further into the FARDC, the national armed forces, in what was called a 'mixage' process.

Dissatisfaction with progress and lack of resettlement of refugees caused the CNDP forces to declare war on the FDLR and hostilities to resume,[68] including civilian atrocities.

On 27 October riots began around the United Nations compound in Goma, and civilians pelted the building with rocks and threw Molotov cocktails, claiming that the UN forces had done nothing to prevent the rebel advance.

Meanwhile, civilians continued to riot, at some points pelting retreating Congolese troops with rocks, though UN spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg stated that the UN has "reinforced [their] presence" in the region.

[78] That same day a French request for an EU reinforcement of 1,500 troops was refused by several countries and appeared unlikely to materialise; however, the UN forces in place stated they would act to prevent takeovers of population centres.

"[85] On 31 October, Nkunda declared that he would create a "humanitarian aid corridor", a no-fire zone where displaced persons would be allowed back to their homes, given the consent of the United Nations task force in the Congo.

[87] On 6 November, rebels broke the ceasefire and wrested control of another town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in clashes with government forces on the eve of a regional summit on the crisis.

National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebels seized control of the centre of Nyanzale, an important army base in Nord-Kivu province after government forces fled.

[94] DR Congo's government suggested his capture would end the activities of one of the country's most feared rebel groups, recently split by a leadership dispute.

Over the weekend of 9/10 May 2009, FDLR Rwandan Hutu rebels were blamed for attacks on the villages of Ekingi and Busurungi in Congo's eastern South Kivu province.

[96] The FDLR were blamed by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; the UN's peacekeeping force, MONUC, and the Congolese Army investigated the attacks.

[101] Africa Confidential said on 25 May 2012 that "the revolt now seems to be as much about resisting an attempt by Kinshasa to disrupt CNDP networks in the restive Kivu provinces, a process of which Ntaganda may find himself a casualty.

[109] On 28 March 2013, faced with recurrent waves of conflict in eastern DRC threatening the overall stability and development of the country and wider Great Lakes region, the Security Council decided, by its Resolution 2098, to create a specialized "intervention brigade" for an initial period of one year and within the authorized MONUSCO troop ceiling of 19,815.

[citation needed] Since the arrival of its first troops in June 2013, the Intervention Brigade has already gone into action resulting in the withdrawal of M23, 30 kilometres (19 mi) from its initial positions in Kanyaruchinya, on 31 August 2013.

Large amounts of weaponry and ammunition were seized, as the army recaptured the towns of Kirumba Kagondo, Kahumiro, Kabwendo, Mugogo, Washing 1 and 2, Kisimba 1, 2 and 3, among other locales.

[115] In January 2016, fighting broke out between the FDLR, ADF and Mai-Mai militias, which resulted in thousands fleeing to surrounding areas in North Kivu's Goma.

On 7 December 2017, an attack orchestrated by the Allied Democratic Forces on a UN base in Semuliki in the North Kivu region resulted in the death of at least 15 UN peacekeepers from the MONUSCO mission.

[13] This attack drew international criticism, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres describing the incident, the worst altercation involving peacekeepers in recent history, as a "war crime".

[166] Towns and villages on the list of combat activities were; Beni, Kanyabayonga, Rutshuru, Rumangabo, Goma, Walikale, Bannyahe, Rubavu, Sake, Masisi and Bunagana.

According to the report published [on 23 October 2013], almost 1,000 cases of child recruitment by armed groups were verified by MONUSCO between 1 January 2012 and 31 August 2013, predominantly in the district of North Kivu.

However, many academic and independent researchers (both Congolese and international) challenge this interpretation, arguing that while conflict minerals are undoubtedly one of the many causes of violence in the region, they are most likely not the most significant and impactful one.

M23 commander Sultani Makenga, who is also allegedly one of the rebels' main recruiters of child soldiers according to the U.N. Group of Experts on Congo, is at the center of the conflict gold efforts.

"[186] In 2021, the Transnational Institute published a report about the role of the arms trade in displacements, finding that "between 2012 and 2015 Bulgaria exported assault rifles, large-calibre artillery systems, light machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers to the Democratic Republic of Congo's national police and military.

"[1] Highlighting the role of the military in human rights abuses, they write that FARDC soldiers in North Kivu "possessed Bulgarian-manufactured ARSENAL weaponry that had been exported to the DRC."