Congo's East: Treacherous Roads, Closed Borders

Traveling through the DR Congo's volatile east takes days, with ramshackle roads and bridges, bandits and militia making journeys a nightmare.

Unlike well-kept Rwandan roads, the road between Bukavu and Uvira, the two main cities of the eastern South Kivu province, is pockmarked with potholes and craters.

Burundi closed its border with Rwanda in January, cutting off the safest and most efficient roads for transporting goods into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many bridges in the east of Congo cannot withstand the passage of heavy vehicles or the force of overflowing water from torrential rains.

Passengers are forced to travel through makeshift passages after Burundi closed its border with Rwanda on January 11, accusing it of supporting the rebel group RED-Tabara, which launched a deadly attack near the border with the DRC in late December.

Since then, there have been no direct Rwandan and Burundian routes from Bujumbura to Bukavu.

The Rwandan route avoids a section of the Congolese road which passes through the so-called "Ngomo escarpment", some 40 kilometers of track winding through mountains.

While Rwanda has "just a small immigration checkpoint" the Ngomo section in DRC has "many barricades manned by security services, just to hassle people.

Decades of turbulent relations between the DRC and Rwanda have hit a new low since the M23 rebel group (March 23 Movement) took up arms again in late 2021 to fight the Kinshasa government.

The Rwandan-backed rebels have since seized vast swathes of North Kivu province, effectively cutting off its capital Goma from the country's interior.

Although Kinshasa expelled the Rwandan ambassador in 2022, the border between the neighbors remains open.