Opinion | Congo Is Bleeding. Where Is the Outrage?

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.

The U.N., along with multiple states and institutions, says that a significant share of Congo’s minerals is smuggled into Rwanda, which has been widely identified as a key transit hub for illicitly extracted resources from Congo. Since the resurgence of M23 in 2021, many international bodies, including the European Union, have raised concerns about Rwanda’s support for the group. Yet the European Union recently signed an agreement with Rwanda to support so-called sustainable mineral supply chains, effectively whitewashing the world’s ongoing plunder of Congolese resources.

This is not the first time the world has overlooked violence in Congo. On Oct. 6, 1996, rebel forces entered Lemera Hospital in South Kivu, where I was the medical director, and massacred my colleagues and my patients in their beds. I was spared simply because I was traveling at the time. The 2010 U.N. mapping exercise documented this crime and many others committed from 1993 to 2003, but its examination of ways to end the violence and bring justice has largely been ignored. The atrocities at Lemera and the impunity that followed marked the beginning of my desire to fight for peace and justice in Congo, as well as my devotion to ensuring that doctors providing lifesaving medical care will never again be at risk under my watch.

History is now repeating itself. After weeks of encircling the region, spreading panic and chaos, last weekend M23 seized control of Bukavu, home to over one million people and the site of Panzi Hospital. Terror and uncertainty grip the population, especially among those who survived past massacres.

How will the world respond to this calculated and systematic offensive? How many lives must be lost before this conflict is finally brought to an end?

The world has the power to act. We must all call on their leaders to take action and deliver justice for the Congolese people. States and international institutions must uphold Congolese sovereignty and place sanctions on Rwanda for its continued support of armed groups in Congo and plundering of Congolese resources.

The inaction must end. Our people deserve justice. Our children deserve a future. And the world must finally decide if the values it claims to uphold apply to all of humanity or only a chosen few.