M23 rebel group's aims in east DR Congo remain murky

M23 rebels have sown chaos in the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo for over a year, but what they hope to achieve remains unclear.

Since late 2021, the group has seized swathes of territory in North Kivu province and neared the regional hub of Goma, prompting hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

"We want a direct dialogue with the government to address the root causes of the conflict," Lawrence Kanyuka, the M23's political spokesman, said while declining to name any specific demands.

The M23, a Tutsi-led group whose name stands for the "March 23 Movement," re-emerged from dormancy in November 2021, accusing the DRC of ignoring a promise to integrate its fighters into the army.

The DRC accuses its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the group, a charge supported by independent UN experts as well as the United States and other western countries. Rwanda denies the accusation.

General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the Congolese military, called the M23 a "Rwandan pawn".

He accused the government of Rwanda, a tiny landlocked state, of seeking access to eastern Congo's rich mineral resources such as gold, coltan and tin -- "It's a problem of economic survival" for Kigali, Ekenge said.

Despite international efforts to defuse the conflict, M23 forces have continued advancing, last month capturing the town of Kitshanga, northwest of Goma.

It now threatens to encircle Goma, a city of over a million people on the Rwandan border.