Congo Is Bleeding. Where Is the Outrage?

Opinion | Congo Is Bleeding. Where Is the Outrage?

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Guest Essay

Feb. 19, 2025

Credit… Daniel Irungu/EPA, via Shutterstock By Denis Mukwege

Dr. Mukwege is the founder of the Panzi Hospital and Foundation and a 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The world is witnessing a new era of conflict. In Gaza, images of devastation have dominated headlines for more than a year. In Ukraine, nations have rallied to defend sovereignty against aggression, deploying diplomatic interventions, sending military aid and enacting sweeping sanctions with urgency. Yet the war unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo remains an afterthought. A bloody conflict is met with condemnations but no meaningful action. This stark contrast is not just neglect; it is selective justice.

Last month Goma, the largest city in the east of Congo, fell to the M23 rebel group, backed by neighboring Rwanda, as part of the group’s decade-long campaign to control the region’s mineral-rich territory. The assault on Goma resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths in the first week alone and thousands of injuries. Today hospitals in Goma are overwhelmed, with many patients being treated in makeshift tents to handle the overflow. The blood supply is strained, the cost of food is skyrocketing, and access to water, electricity and the internet is severely limited. The U.N. uncovered that in the chaos, more than 100 female inmates at a prison were raped and then burned alive when the facility caught fire.

Congo has been plagued by war for nearly three decades. Millions of people have been displaced, and rape has consistently been used as a weapon of war. Most estimates state that over six million people have died, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. But many of us who live in Congo believe that the real number is much higher. And the world remains largely silent.

I am a Congolese doctor. For 30 years, I have repaired the bodies of women brutalized by this war. Today I’m treating the grandchildren of my early patients. At Panzi Hospital and Foundation, the health center and nongovernmental organization I founded in 1999, we have treated over 83,000 survivors of sexual violence. Thousands have arrived pregnant by their attackers. Thirty percent of the sexual violence survivors we see are children. The patterns of terror are unmistakable: villages burned, families slaughtered, women violated — not as collateral damage but as a calculated weapon of war, designed to instill fear, erase communities and seize control.

Rwanda chose its moment wisely to push farther into Congo. When M23 invaded in 2012, international pressure — particularly from the United States — forced the Rwandan government to withdraw its support. Its occupation of Goma ended in less than two weeks. But today that pressure is absent. While the world and media are fixated on the first days of the Trump administration, Rwanda apparently saw an opportunity to act without consequence. Experts assembled by the United Nations have detailed Rwanda’s illegal exploitation of Congo’s rare minerals. And now, with global attention focused elsewhere, Rwanda has escalated its aggression — seemingly knowing that no meaningful consequences are likely to follow. (Rwanda has repeatedly denied any direct involvement in Congo.)

My country is home to huge reserves of the minerals essential for modern technology. It produces well over half of the world’s cobalt and contains 60 to 80 percent of the world’s coltan. From smartphones to electric vehicles, modern society is powered by Congolese minerals. For years, M23 has worked to make a business out of Congo’s minerals. The recent U.N. group of experts’ report on Congo submitted to the Security Council indicates that M23 generates at least $800,000 per month from a tax on coltan production and trade from Rubaya, a major mining site it seized last year.

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