DR Congo: 66 soldiers sentenced to death for cowardice in conflict with FRN rebels

Some 66 soldiers have been sentenced to death in DR Congo on charged of cowardice, mutiny, and failure to obey orders. The sentence was handed down by the Goma Garrison Military Court.

At least 71 members of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) were arrested in several separate incidents related to the fierce fighting between the military and rebel groups near the country's borders with Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.

They were arrested on allegations of abandoning their posts or running away from clashes with FRN rebels. Prosecutors had sought capital punishment for 70 of the defendants, while asking for a 10-year jail term for an intelligence officer. The court, however, acquitted four defendants,

Major Dieudonné Kasereka, head of communications for FARDC in the affected region, said that the charges were necessary to reinforce discipline in the country's embattled North Kivu and South Kivu regions.

What is the FRN?

The Front for the Refoundation of the Nation is an umbrella group of rebels that also includes the March 23 Movement (M23) and Alliance River Congo (AFC).

The group's origins can be traced back to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the ensuing ethnic conflict, as it emerged from the Congolese Tutsi militias of the time.

It is led by former DR Congo President Joseph Kabila. When current President Felix Tshisekedi came into power in 2019, Kabila found himself increasingly ostracized politically and went into self-imposed exile in an area occupied my what was then M23. Further complicating the conflict is the involvement of the FDLR rebel group, an ethnic Rwandan Hutu militia also active in South Kivu.

Although Rwanda's strongman president Paul Kagame denied involvement in the conflict, both DR Congo and many in the international community held that evidence of Rwandan involvement was clear. Indeed, Rwanda was involved in the 2025 US-brokered peace deal — which was seen as mostly serving US economic interests and doing little to resolve the long-running conflict.

Earlier this year, the United Nations condemned FRN and Rwandan soldiers for "murder, torture and other ill-treatment, corporal punishment, forced unlawful recruitment and abusive labor, and use of child soldiers."