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Goma ‘fiasco’ — deal to bring SA and SADC troops home hits a snag

Goma ‘fiasco’ — deal to bring SA and SADC troops home hits a snag
Peter Fabricius
By Peter Fabricius
1 Apr 2025
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DRC foreign minister says M23 rebels and Rwandan troops will have to leave Goma before SADC troops withdraw.

The promising agreement between SADC and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels on Friday to facilitate the “immediate withdrawal” of trapped SADC troops from Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has hit a significant snag.

The DRC government now says the SADC troops may withdraw from Goma only after the M23 and Rwandan Defence Force have pulled out of the city.

This is unlikely to happen soon.

On 13 March 2025, SADC leaders met and agreed to terminate the mandate of SAMIDRC, the SADC Mission in DRC.

Read more: SADC leaders terminate peacekeeping mission in DRC

South African, Tanzanian and Malawian soldiers deployed in SAMIDRC since December 2023 have been held captive in their camps in and around the eastern DRC city of Goma since late January 2025, when they were overrun by M23 militias heavily backed by Rwanda. Eighteen SADC soldiers were killed, including 14 members of the SA National Defence Force, though some of the South African troops were attached to the UN peacekeeping force Monusco.

On Friday, 28 March 2025, officers and officials of SADC – including SANDF chief General Rudzani Maphwanya and Kula Theletsane, director of SADC’s organ on politics, defence and security – conducted negotiations with the M23 and its partner organisation, the Alliance Fleuve Congo, (AFC) in Goma.

Major General Ibrahim Mhona, chief of operations of the Tanzanian Defence Force and Major General Sultani Makenga, military chief of M23, signed an agreement that the AFC/M23 would “facilitate immediate withdrawal of SAMIDRC troops with their weapons and equipment, leaving behind all the FARDC (DRC military) weapons and equipment in their possession”. 

Delays


The agreement also stated that “SADC will assist in the repair of Goma international airport to allow withdrawal of SAMIDRC.” A joint technical team from both sides would assess the status of Goma airport “in readiness for reopening”.

First, having to help repair Goma airport – which was damaged in the January fighting – presents one indefinite delay to the withdrawal of the SAMIDRC troops, though a SADC official sounded fairly optimistic.

He told Daily Maverick: “The technical team will assess the damage. So far we don’t know how long it will take. But we were assured that it will not take that long.”

A potentially bigger delay in the withdrawal arose on Saturday when DRC foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told CGTN news in effect that SAMIDRC could withdraw from Goma only after the M23 and Rwandan Defence Force had withdrawn from the city. She said SAMIDRC’s withdrawal would be gradual.

“Obviously it cannot happen overnight. It will be a responsible withdrawal because it takes into account the responsibilities on the ground. 

“But it also has to be an operationally feasible withdrawal and for that, you need some preliminaries. You need the M23 and the RDF to withdraw out of Goma. You need roads to be fully accessible, again being blocked by the M23 and the RDF. You need the airport to be operational once more. So access has to be given to the Congolese authorities as well as the UN, which has offered their help to reestablish operationality of the airport.”

Held hostage?


Does this mean that the DRC will now effectively hold SAMIDRC hostage, some military analysts are asking. 

A SADC official knowledgeable about the deal, though, seemed unconcerned. “As SADC, we are not aware of that,” he told Daily Maverick, referring to Wagner’s statement. “We are continuing.”

Apart from Wagner’s later intervention, the Friday agreement between SADC and the M23 itself has elicited mixed responses. Some commentators seemed surprised that the M23 – or, effectively, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, since he clearly controls the M23 – had agreed to allow SAMIDRC to withdraw with its weapons, since he clearly had them over a barrel.

Others are outraged that despite all hardships and humiliations its forces have already suffered, SADC is now expected to help rebuild Goma airport.

Diplomatic win for Rwanda


However, Bram Verelst, Great Lakes expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, said: “I think the diplomatic win for Rwanda was the decision for SAMIDRC to withdraw. After that, I am not really surprised they allowed SADC troops to leave. 

“I do think this is quite a diplomatic victory for M23, too. They present themselves as a governing authority, and this kind of direct engagement and the agreement with SADC helps them in that.”

Verelst said he did not know in detail how much repair Goma airport needed, but that repairing it was also in SADC’s interest, as a lot of SAMIDRC equipment had been airlifted in. 

“I assume that such an agreement was the only way to get their equipment back. You might consider it outrageous or humiliating, I agree, but this has been the case for the whole ordeal of SAMIDRC since the takeover of Goma. 

“The reopening of Goma airport is also a key demand of the EAC-SADC process and would also have important implications for humanitarian logistics, which were heavily affected by the closure of the airport.”

The EAC-SADC process Verelst refers to is the framework for a peace agreement which was launched at a joint summit of leaders of the East African Community (EAC) and SADC in Dar es Salaam on 8 February 2025. It set out a roadmap for peace talks, for the reopening of Goma airport and also for opening corridors into and out of Goma to enable humanitarian assistance.

“I also assume that the SADC delegation had some backchannel with the DRC government, so that this agreement is also (informally) validated by them, as issues on border movements and airspace are key for Congolese sovereignty,” Verelst said.

‘Astonishing fiasco’


Stephanie Wolters, senior research fellow and Great Lakes expert at the SA Institute of International Affairs, said: “I think it is astonishing that after being hammered and targeted by the M23 and Rwanda, and taking serious casualties, after being essentially humiliated by the M23 and Rwanda, after being threatened ever since they deployed, the SANDF is now bending over backwards and agreeing to pay to redo the airport.

“To me, that can only be because the M23 is refusing to do it, and so SADC and SA have no choice if they want their troops out. It demonstrates just what a fiasco this is.

“Trying to rebrand it as some sort of step towards peace is just mind-boggling,” she said, in apparent reference to statements by President Ramaphosa and other officials that the South African and other SADC troops would be withdrawn progressively in response to the evolution of the peace process. DM

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