The EAC force intervened to help the Congolese administration regain control of Bunagana, a city in North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after M23 troops entered on June 13th, 2022. However, one year later, the security situation in the city remains very precarious.
The M23 soldiers have left the town for the Sabino hills. Some of the refugees who had gone to Uganda have returned to cultivate their fields. But the border post has not been reopened with this country by the Congolese authorities.
“Bunagana is a city on the border”, recalls Reagan Miviri, a researcher at the Congo Studies Group and the Ebuteli Congolese Research Institute in the DRC. “This means that there are bound to be interactions between Uganda and the DRC across this border, which nevertheless remains open. At the same time, we cannot say that there is normality. It remains an occupied area and the population still feels outside the normal structures of the Congolese administration”.
“It is the M23 which takes the administration of all these areas”
If the M23 soldiers are more discreet in Bunagana, they are still the ones who administer the area, underline a researcher. Ugandan, Kenyan, and Sudanese soldiers had the mandate to disarm and canton armed groups, including the M23. But the process did not go beyond that. The M23 demanded negotiations from the Congolese authorities, who have always refused them.