New mapping & biographies of armed groups in eastern Congo

Posted by ethuin on December 6, 2017 · 2 Comments 

Two years past our last mapping, the newly established Kivu Security Tracker launches. It will host the most recent armed group mapping for eastern Congo, dated October 2017, and following previous exercises by suluhu throughout the past four years. This time, thanks to network built around the Kivu Security Tracker project, the mapping will feature as part of a broader project mapping not only zones of influence, but also security incidents. Further on, an essay carves out some of the main trends – new ones as well as some already observable in our 2015 mapping – in terms of armed mobilisation in the Kivus.

Strikingly, the new 2017 mapping includes roughly 120 different non-state armed groups in the two Kivu provinces alone. While all of them are identifiable as groups on their own, many of them work either under similar labels – Raia Mutomboki, Nyatura etc., or in broader, though (often unstable) coalitions – CNPSC, Mazembe etc. Nonetheless, the sheer number is alarming, especially if confronted with historic IDP levels and a difficult political situation overall. Moreover, the mapping is limited to the Kivus and does not even include other current hotbeds such as Tanganyika, Bas-Congo or the Kasai region.

Suluhu has provided its expertise to the Kivu Security Tracker in two main ways – a extensive anthology of currently active armed groups (find the biographies here), and a revised mapping of their respective zones of influence (find the new map here, including previous versions). To download the essay analysing new trends in eastern Congo’s armed mobilisation dynamics, check out the new Kivu Security Tracker, which also features the most detailed public tracking of security incidents as well as other features such as graphs and regular situations reports. Don’t hesitate to get in touch in case of questions!