The battle in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo continued on 5th December, a day after President Donald Trump summoned Congolese and Rwandan leaders in Washington to sign new agreements that would end decades of fighting in a region that contains numerous minerals.
On Thursday, Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda President Paul Kagame renewed their promises of a U.S.-brokered agreement that both nations had arrived at in June to stabilize the massive country and allow more Western mining investment.
NEW: President Trump opens the peace deal signing ceremony, held at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, between Rwanda and Congo
TRUMP: “We’re settling a war that’s been going on for decades with millions and millions of people killed.” pic.twitter.com/cqIO6ONupo
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 4, 2025
“We are not only paying off an old war that has lasted decades,” but Trump also said in his administration that he is in a series of wars all over the world to shine his own halo as a peacemaker and further U.S. business interests.
There was, however, intense fighting on the ground with the warring parties accusing each other.
“The opposing forces were carrying out massive attacks,” said the AFC/M23 rebel group, backed by the Rwandans and not a party to the Washington accord, which had taken over the two largest cities in the eastern part of the Congo early this year.
A spokesperson of the Congolese army added that conflicts were going on and that Rwandan troops were dropping bombs.
U.S. diplomacy was unable to stop the intensification of the battle in eastern Congo, but did not solve the fundamental problems, according to analysts, and neither Congo nor Rwanda has kept its promises given in the June agreement.
Online videos on Friday depicted dozens of displaced families walking away with their possessions and animals on foot in the area of the town of Luvungi in South Kivu province in eastern Congo. This could not be authenticated immediately by Reuters.
Lawrence Kanyuka, who spoke on behalf of AFC/M23, which has no obligation to any Congo-Rwanda accord, has written that many homes have been destroyed, and women as well as children have died tragically.
“Loyalist forces against the Congolese government,” he wrote on X, “were resuming their indiscriminate assaults on the densely populated zones of North and South Kivu with fighter jets, drones, and heavy artillery, but provided no overall number of the dead.”
A spokesperson of the Congo army informed Reuters that the fight was still happening on Friday in the axis of the Kaziba, Katogota, and Rurambo in the South Kivu province.
“In Luvungi, there is population displacement caused by the bombardment of the Rwandan Defence Force. They are throwing bombs in the dark,” he said.
The army and government spokespersons of Rwanda were not on hand to comment.
The official of the AFC/M23 said that rebel troops had regained control of the town of Luberika and that they had shot down a Congolese military drone. He demanded anonymity because he had no right to address the media.
“The war persists on the ground, and it is not linked to signing the agreement, which happened yesterday in Washington.”
