COLUMN: The Congo is burning, drones are buzzing, and the world looks the other way

The Democratization of Aerial Terror

Vivian van de Perre highlighted a point that diplomats noted without fully grasping its significance: the growing use of offensive drones in urban areas. This is not a technical detail. It is a paradigm shift. The drones striking Goma and Kisangani are not experimental prototypes. They are accessible, deployable weapons that transform any armed actor into an air force.

From Ukraine to the Congo—the same technology, but not the same outrage

When a Russian drone strikes a residential building in Kharkiv, the whole world condemns it. When a drone strikes a neighborhood in Goma, the whole world… doesn’t even know it happened. The technology is identical. The suffering is identical. Only the value placed on the victims differs.

On March 11, 2026, MONUSCO peacekeepers had to secure a house hit by a drone strike in Goma. Peacekeepers protecting civilians from flying weapons in a city the international community abandoned long ago. The image is so absurd that it perfectly epitomizes this conflict.

Coltan in Your Pocket

Eastern Congo is rich in coltan, cobalt, gold, tantalum, and rare earth elements. These minerals power your phones, computers, and electric cars. The supply chain is straightforward: a mine controlled by a militia in Rubaya produces the ore, which—after passing through three middlemen and crossing two borders—ends up as an electronic component assembled in China and sold in Cupertino.

Van de Perre reported that armed groups are now attacking mining sites in Ituri Province. This isn’t abstract geopolitics. It’s looting. It’s armed robbery on an industrial scale, and the fence-operators wear suits and sit on corporate boards.

The Complicit Silence of Tech Companies

Every UN report on Congolese conflict minerals is met with the same hollow statements from tech giants: “We take our responsibilities seriously.” “We audit our supply chains.” And every year, the same minerals come out of the same mines controlled by the same militias. The cycle is so perfect it could be patented.

And yet, it would take just one thing for everything to change: for the moral cost of these minerals to exceed their market price. That day has not yet come.

From North Kivu to Tshopo — The Spread

Van de Perre has identified a new and serious development: the conflict has now spread to Tshopo Province. For those familiar with Congolese geography, this news is terrifying. Tshopo is Kisangani. It is the heart of the country. It is proof that the war is no longer confined to the eastern provinces—it is spreading.

Bangoka Airport in Kisangani has been hit. An airport. Not an isolated military outpost in the bush. A civilian airport in a city of over a million people. Escalation is no longer a risk. It is already underway.

The Burundian border—the specter of a regional conflagration

The front lines are shifting toward the Burundian border. Van de Perre used a specific term: “regional conflagration.” This term is not insignificant coming from a UN diplomat. It means that the worst-case scenario—a war involving the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and potentially Uganda—is no longer theoretical. It is within striking distance.

Burundi, a tiny and fragile country, has neither the resources nor the stability to absorb a cross-border conflict. If the fighting crosses that border, the humanitarian consequences will be on a scale that even UN models cannot project.

Parallel Administrative Structures

Here is the detail that diplomats should find most alarming—and which they have treated with the greatest nonchalance: the M23 is consolidating parallel administrative structures in the territories it controls, including Goma. In short, the M23 is no longer content merely to conquer. It governs. It collects taxes. It appoints administrators. It creates faits accomplis.

The Strategy of Irreversibility

This is the strategy of irreversibility: to occupy for so long and so deeply that a return to the status quo ante becomes impossible. Every day that passes without a ceasefire makes the Congolese state’s recapture of these territories more difficult, more costly, and bloodier. The M23 is not seeking to win a war—it is seeking to make peace impossible without its terms.

And yet, this strategy works precisely because the international community allows it to work. Every month of inaction is a month of consolidation. Every resolution that goes unenforced is a license to annex.

The March 20 meeting

Officials from the Congo, Rwanda, and the United States met in Washington the week before the briefing. They agreed on “coordinated measures to defuse tensions.” The phrasing is so vague that it could mean anything—including doing nothing at all with diplomatic elegance.

Massad Boulos and Trump’s Priority

Massad Boulos, Donald Trump’s advisor on African and Arab affairs, presided over the Security Council session. He stated that resolving the conflict in eastern Congo is “a matter of the highest priority” for the U.S. president. Let’s take a moment to weigh those words.

The highest priority. For an administration that is bombing Iran, negotiating with Russia over Ukraine, waging a trade war with China, and reshaping NATO. The Congo is supposedly the top priority. If that’s true, then Washington possesses a capacity for parallel crisis management that defies the laws of political physics. If it’s false—and the Congolese know it’s false—then these are just more words in an ocean of words that have never saved anyone in Goma.

A Peacekeeping Force with No Peace to Protect

MONUSCO has nearly 9,000 members. It is the oldest active peacekeeping mission in the world. It operates in a country the size of Western Europe, with impassable roads, virtually no air coverage, and a mandate that puts it in an impossible position: to maintain peace where there is no peace to maintain.

When Blue Helmets Become Targets

Van de Perre pointed out that the airports are closed and that the peacekeepers’ freedom of movement is restricted. Let’s consider what this means in practical terms: United Nations peacekeepers, deployed with the theoretical consent of all parties, cannot move freely within the country they are supposed to protect. The M23 controls not only the territory but also access to that territory—including for the international community.

Boulos stated that “MONUSCO remains indispensable to the success of the peace process.” That is true. But an indispensable force that is prevented from acting is merely a token force. And tokens do not save civilians.

The Silent Massacres

Van de Perre described the situation in Ituri Province as “alarming.” Many of the victims are linked to violence perpetrated by one armed group, while another group is attacking mining sites. Ituri is the forgotten Congo within the forgotten Congo. It suffers the double punishment of invisibility.

The Mechanics of Oblivion

When a conflict lasts thirty years, it ceases to be news. It becomes background noise. Newsrooms no longer cover the massacres in the Congo for the same reason that no one writes articles about gravity anymore: it’s a permanent fact, so it’s no longer a fact. The duration of the suffering becomes the justification for ignoring it.

And yet, every death in Ituri is just as irreversible as every death anywhere else. Every child who loses a parent in a militia attack in Bunia does not suffer any less simply because their tragedy is “chronic.” Chronicity numbs only the spectators—never the victims.

Agreements Signed in a Vacuum

Van de Perre stated that all signed agreements must be implemented, and that a ceasefire is the first step. This is an irrefutable logic. It is also bewilderingly naive when viewed in historical context. How many ceasefires have been signed in the Congo since 1996? Dozens. How many have held? None has lasted long enough to deserve the name “peace.”

The Architecture of Impunity

A ceasefire without an enforcement mechanism is nothing more than a press release. A ceasefire without sanctions against those who violate it is an invitation to violate it. A ceasefire that fails to address the issues of minerals, Rwandan support, and the M23’s parallel structures is a band-aid on a severed artery.

Peace in the Congo will not come from an agreement. It will come on the day when the cost of war exceeds the profit it generates for those who sustain it. No one in Washington, Kigali, or New York has any interest in making that calculation honestly.

The Country the West Refuses to Name

Rwanda supports the M23. This is not an accusation—it is a fact established by UN experts. And yet, in diplomatic coverage of this conflict, Rwanda is treated with remarkable leniency. People speak of “Rwanda-backed rebels” as if they were merely a gentle breeze. There is never any mention of aggression.

The reason is geopolitical and cynical: Paul Kagame’s Rwanda is a strategic ally. It provides troops for peacekeeping missions elsewhere in Africa. It has experienced impressive economic growth. It presents a respectable image in international forums. And this veneer of respectability buys it de facto diplomatic immunity for its operations in the Congo.

The moral precedent no one wants to set

If the international community were to call Rwanda’s actions in the Congo what they are—a proxy war of aggression fueled by the plundering of natural resources—it would set a precedent. It would be forced to act. It would be forced to impose sanctions. It would be forced to choose between its principles and its interests. And no capital city wants to make that choice.

The M23’s parallel administrative structures are blocking access

Van de Perre emphasized that the M23’s parallel administrative structures are complicating the delivery of humanitarian aid. In polite UN parlance, this means that millions of displaced people are not receiving food, medicine, or protection. The M23 controls who enters and leaves Goma. It decides which NGOs are allowed to operate and which are expelled.

The Numbers Behind Everyday Horror

More than 7 million internally displaced people in the Congo—the highest number in the world. Seven million people who have fled their homes, who live in makeshift camps, who depend on international aid that trickles in—if at all. Seven million. This number is so vast that it ceases to mean anything to the human mind. That is precisely the problem.

And yet, behind that number, there is a woman who has been walking for three days with an infant on her back. There is a teenager who will never return to school. There is an elderly man who died of dehydration ten kilometers from a water source that no one could reach because of the fighting.

The Invisible Proliferation

The use of offensive drones in the Congo is not just a Congolese problem. It is a global wake-up call. If drones capable of striking airports and residential areas are deployed in a conflict the world ignores, how long will it be before they appear in the next conflict that the world will also ignore?

Drone technology is now inexpensive, portable, and deadly effective. What was a strategic advantage reserved for major powers a decade ago has become a tool accessible to any militia with a budget and a supplier. And in eastern Congo, there is no shortage of suppliers.

The Laboratory No One Is Watching

Eastern Congo is becoming a testing ground for the wars of the future—heavy weapons combined with drones, urban areas serving as battlefields, parallel state structures, and a war economy fueled by strategic minerals. Everything that will define the conflicts of the coming decades is already unfolding in Congo. And the world refuses to look, as if ignorance were a strategy.

A Deceptive Diplomatic Victory

In January 2026, the M23 withdrew from the town of Uvira in South Kivu under international pressure. This withdrawal was presented as progress—a sign of goodwill, proof that diplomacy works. Except that while Uvira was being celebrated, fighting was intensifying everywhere else.

It’s the old tactic of a tactical retreat: sacrificing a pawn to consolidate the rest of the chessboard. The M23 left Uvira. It still holds Goma. It’s expanding its control. It’s striking Kisangani with drones. The calculation is crystal clear: concede a secondary city to legitimize the occupation of major cities.

The Diplomacy of Small Steps—Leading Nowhere

The international community loves “small steps.” Every minor concession is magnified, every partial withdrawal is hailed, every bilateral meeting is described as “encouraging progress.” Meanwhile, the number of displaced people is rising. Drone strikes are increasing. Parallel structures are consolidating. The small steps of diplomacy never catch up with the giant strides of war.

The Mirror We Refuse to See

The Congo is not a distant problem. The Congo is a mirror. It reflects what the international community truly is, behind all the rhetoric about human rights and a rules-based order. It shows that rules are applied selectively. That some lives matter more than others. That some wars warrant sanctions and others warrant press releases.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the sanctions were massive, swift, and coordinated. When Rwanda—via the M23—captured Goma, the response was… a meeting in Washington and a call for a ceasefire. The disproportion is no accident. It is a policy.

Indifference as an Active Choice

Failing to act in the Congo is not neutrality. It is a choice. It is the choice to let people die whose deaths cost nothing politically. It is the choice to allow the plundering of minerals whose plunder benefits our economies. It is the choice not to upset a strategic ally whose crimes are documented but inconvenient.

And yet, this choice comes at a price. Not for us—not yet. But for the seven million displaced people. For the civilians in Goma living under occupation. For the children of Ituri who are growing up amid war just as others grow up in a neighborhood. The price is paid by those who never sit on the Security Council.

What Should Be Done—But Won’t Be

Targeted sanctions against Rwandan officials responsible for supporting the M23. An effective embargo on conflict minerals—not a cosmetic audit, but a genuine ban. A strengthening of MONUSCO’s mandate with rules of engagement that allow for the effective protection of civilians. A no-fly zone to prevent offensive drones from flying over populated areas. A special tribunal for crimes committed in eastern Congo since 1996.

None of this will happen. Not this year. Probably not next year either. The minerals are too valuable. The alliances are too convenient. The dead are too far away. And the world will continue to be surprised that Africa does not trust international institutions—all while providing, year after year, the most compelling reasons for that mistrust.

The Only Question That Matters

The Congo is burning. Drones buzz overhead in Goma. Militias are looting the mines in Ituri. The front lines are advancing toward Burundi. The Congolese state is crumbling under the parallel structures of the M23. And Vivian van de Perre said all of this, calmly, in front of fifteen ambassadors, in an air-conditioned room in Manhattan.

The question is no longer whether the international community is informed. It is. The question is no longer whether the tools exist. They do. The only question that matters is the one no one is asking: How many Congolese deaths will it take before this conflict deserves the same attention as any other?

We all know the answer. We simply refuse to say it out loud.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost