The security situation around Minembwe in South Kivu is increasingly being shaped by military activity farther south, particularly around Fizi and Baraka, as the conflict involving AFC/M23 and forces aligned with the Congolese government threatens to expand across the territory.
According to AFC/M23, the Congolese armed forces (FARDC), the FDLR and Wazalendo armed groups have established operational positions in Fizi and Baraka from which attacks against Minembwe are being organised and launched.
The movement says the concentration of forces in the two areas has transformed Fizi and Baraka into strategic military centres in the wider confrontation over Minembwe and the surrounding highlands.
AFC/M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said on Saturday that defending Minembwe could no longer be understood simply as maintaining forces inside the town while hostile armed groups remained positioned within striking distance.
The movement’s emerging strategy instead appears to favour creating a wider security perimeter around Minembwe by pushing opposing forces farther away from areas they could use to launch attacks.
Such an approach could have significant implications for the geography of the conflict in South Kivu.
Rather than limiting military operations to Minembwe and its immediate surroundings, establishing a security buffer could potentially extend confrontations toward other parts of Fizi Territory.
Minembwe and the surrounding highlands have long been among South Kivu’s most sensitive security zones. The area has experienced repeated clashes involving the FARDC and an array of local and foreign armed groups, while civilians have endured displacement and persistent insecurity.
The presence of the FDLR remains particularly contentious because of the armed group’s origins in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Kigali has repeatedly identified the continued operation of the group in eastern DRC as a major regional security concern.
Wazalendo groups, meanwhile, have increasingly operated alongside or in support of the FARDC in the conflict against AFC/M23, forming part of the broader coalition confronting the movement in eastern DRC.
The latest claims point to the possibility that the contest for Minembwe could increasingly become a battle over the territory surrounding it.
If AFC/M23 moves to establish the security perimeter it describes, Fizi and the approaches toward Baraka could assume greater strategic importance in the next phase of the South Kivu conflict.
Neither the FARDC nor the Congolese government had, in the information available for this report, independently confirmed AFC/M23’s claim that Fizi and Baraka are being used as headquarters for shelling Minembwe.