Uvira’s recapture: A tactical gain but not a strategic win for Congo

THE recent announcement about the Congolese army (FARDC) having regained control of Uvira, the strategic lakeside city in the province of South Kivu following the withdrawal of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, is being hailed in Kinshasa and across African capitals as a symbolic victory for Congolese sovereignty.

- SESONA MDLOKOVANA

However this event, while welcome, reveals more about the fragility of peace processes, the complexity of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) conflicts, and reveals the limits of purely military solutions in a region long plagued by state and non-state violence.

This week, the Congolese military and allied militias known as the Wazalendo entered Uvira, just weeks after M23 fighters had announced their departure.

Residents reportedly greeted FARDC forces with cheers during sporadic gunfire and incidents of looting, signalling both relief and lingering insecurity among the civilian population. The army’s spokesperson also confirmed arrests of looters and reinforced troop deployments aimed at consolidating control.

One cannot deny that the recapture of Uvira is more than a mere tactical reversal of an enemy move. Uvira sits on Lake Tanganyika, close to the Burundi border, and functions as a crucial military and commercial node that links the DRC with East African markets and supply chains.

Until recently, it served as one of the few urban bastions of government authority in an increasingly fracturing South Kivu. Its loss in December 2025 to M23, days after Congolese and Rwandan presidents had signed a high-profile peace deal in Washington, was a stark indicator of how fragile external diplomacy can be when it is failing to address the deeper drivers of conflict.

The uncomfortable reality behind the withdrawal