The stories of the Romanian soldiers on Tuesday night were desperate. After hours of combat in front of the M23 guerrillas in the city of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they had capitulated. First they tried to protect the city airport (one million inhabitants), in the target of the rebels from their entrance to the city this Sunday, but surpassed them in number and undertook the withdrawal to a base of the United Nations mission in The capital of Kivu Norte, the main objective of the armed group in the offensive launched since March 2022 in the East Congolese. Then, according to the narration to which the country has had access, the Romanian military were besieged and also surpassed in the international mission barracks until open negotiations between the parties, with the mediation of the UN, allowed them to be escorted Towards the border with Rwanda. They were afraid to be “massacred” once they crossed the border.
On the morning of Wednesday, the Ruandesas authorities reported the arrival of around 280 Romanian soldiers to their territory. They were transferred to Kigali, the capital of the country. It is expected that from there be deported to Bucharest. All of them worked for a private military company of foreign contractors that operates in support of the Army of Congo, one of many armed actors in this great loop of central Africa. His surrender, photographed on the other side of the border, in the Ruanda town of Gisenyi, also stages the great triumph of the M23 after almost three years of the campaign against the forces of Kinshasa, accelerated in the last month until the conquest of the strategic rubber.
This squad of Romanian contractors, many of them with previous experience in the French foreign legion, has played training and combat work for the armed forces of the African country under the umbrella of the local company Congo Protection. Eight months before the Felix Tshisekedi government concluded the negotiations with this security firm, the M23, formed by Tutsis rebels with support from Rwanda – Kigali justifies its interference in the fight against militias Hutus, enemies from the genocide of 1994, to Both sides of the border – had relaunched his offensive on eastern Congo, rich in Coltán and other very precious minerals. However, Kinshasa’s commitment to underpin his army with the experience of these contractors to stop the guerrillas, while urging the UN mission in the country (Monusco) to make the bags, he has failed.
The participation of foreign military in Africa, either in troop training or in combat, is as old as their wars. Recent examples of this practice, with a notable increase in the arrival of Russian nationals, there are in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Central African Republic … The Congolese stage adds an unparalleled complexity, with dozens of guerrillas in action , some allies to M23 itself through the Congo river alliance; others with roots in the Hutus enemies of Rwanda, and even under the influence of the Islamic State, such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF, in its most common in English). To the contest the aforementioned monusco are joined, with a mandate until the end of the year, plus the support of Burundi’s military and a contingent of the Southern Africa Development Community.
According to the information gathered in June 2023 for the UN Security Council by the group of experts on Congo, the agreement between the Tshisekedi Executive and the Congo Protection firm was made effective in December 2022. At the head of the military detachment Formed in Romania is veteran Horathiu Potra, which some media in the European country have linked to the security service of the extreme right -wing political leader Calin Georgescu. Potra was arrested at the beginning of last December while traveling in a vehicle to Bucharest with weapons inside.
The presence of this group of Romanian military veterans is well known by Bucharest. This Tuesday, the Romanian Foreign Ministry convened a crisis cell to urgently manage the departure of its nationals, which, according to the outcome, seems to have paid off. “The serious deterioration of the security situation [en Congo]”The department said in a note,” he blocked a group of Romanian citizens who acted in the area from a private contract. “
According to the statement, the mission in which these soldiers worked was “training”, but the reports made and published by the UN in the last two years specifically report their work in the active defense of the rubber airport and the Kavumu airfield , in the city of Bukavu (Kivu Sur), possible new objective of M23. Precisely from Kivu Sur, the monusco recently retired, in a first phase of withdrawal of its blue helmets. At least three Romanian military have died in clashes only during the past year. The Romanian newspaper Observator He has reported that these contractors would be earning up to $ 5,000 per month (about 4,800 euros), well above what a foreign combatant can earn, serve as an example, in a contest such as Ukraine.
Although Congo Protection is the private military company with more personnel in the field – he commented with about 300 men, but it is estimated that he has gathered around 900 contractors – is not the only one. Five months before starting to walk, in July 2022, Kinshas The theater of operations.
According to the information collected by the group of Congo experts for the UN, Agemira RDC has had among its employees in the African country to Bulgarians, Belarusians, Georgians, Algerians, French and Congolese. Although it started two and a half years ago with about 70 workers – 35 deployed in the East and another 35, in Kinshasa -, it would now have about 100 contractors for salary. This Rapporteur Committee, which works under the resolution of the Security Council, gives Agemira RDC a predominant role, that is, linked to the strategy to be followed by the Congolese army in its fight against M23 and its Ruandese allies. In a volatine only possible in a context such as war, the rebel guerrillas itself, assisted without taping by Ruandesas forces, has several times the participation of these contractors, qualified as “mercenaries”, together with the Congolese armed forces.