Citation
The Burundian Factor:
Africa File Special Edition
By Yale Ford
September 01, 2026
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Key Takeaways:
Burundi's Expanding Role in the War in the Eastern DRC. Burundi has
significantly expanded its military involvement in the eastern Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) against Rwanda and Rwandan-backed M23
rebels in the last three and a half years as part of its growing military
cooperation with the Congolese government. Burundi has emerged as a
strategic military partner to the Congolese government and its allies,
providing important manpower and playing a key operational role in the DRC
coalition against M23 and Rwanda. Burundi’s heightened involvement against
M23 and Rwanda in recent years is an inflection in the scale and focus of
prior Burundian military deployments to the eastern DRC.
Burundi–Rwanda Rivalry and Proxy Competition. Burundi and Rwanda
have engaged in an escalating proxy competition in the eastern DRC
interrupted by short-lived periods of improved bilateral relations for over
a decade. Increased regional competition and M23’s expanding territorial
control began to reignite bilateral tensions around 2023.
Domestic Political Drivers of Burundi's DRC Involvement. Burundian
elites have strong self-serving incentives to leverage the war with M23 and
Rwanda and related ethnic narratives for domestic political purposes.
Burundian elites use ethnic narratives to frame regional insecurity in ways
that mobilize and consolidate domestic support and justify crackdowns on
regime and domestic opponents.
Burundi's Strategic Interests in the Eastern DRC. Burundi’s involvement
in the eastern DRC is likely driven by its interdependence with crossborder informal economic networks in the eastern DRC and Burundian
elites’ close economic ties to the Congolese government. Burundi likely
backs the Congolese government militarily because it also views South Kivu
as its sphere of influence and would face a heightened national security threat
if M23 controlled the Burundi-DRC border, as the group did when Uvira town
fell to M23.
The War’s Domestic Costs and Political Implications for Burundi. The
war could cause heightened instability in Burundi in the short to medium
term, as it has exacerbated domestic economic challenges and is
reportedly contributing to growing discontent and internal rifts within the
Burundian army. Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye is jockeying to
keep and consolidate power within his ruling party as domestic challenges
exacerbated by the Burundian government’s war costs continue to mount.
Burundi’s Role and Implications for the Washington Peace
Accords. Burundi has also started to assume a larger political role in
support of the Congolese government outside of formal peace processes.
Burundi’s lack of inclusion in regional US-backed peace frameworks will
almost certainly continue to undermine efforts to build trust, advance
peace and regional stability, and facilitate a sustainable end to the war
given Burundi’s major regional role. Burundi’s military deployments in the
DRC and other areas of interest to the United States may simultaneously
enhance its standing with the United States, however.
Assessment:
Burundi's Expanding Role in the War in the Eastern DRC
Burundi has significantly expanded its military involvement in the eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against Rwanda and Rwandan-backed
M23 rebels in the last three and a half years as part of its growing military
cooperation with the Congolese government. Direct Burundian support to the
Congolese government against M23 and the Rwandan army (RDF) increased initially
during Burundi’s participation in the East African Community Regional Force
(EACRF). The EACRF was a multinational military mission deployed between 2022
and 2023 to stabilize the eastern DRC. The Burundian army (FDNB) had committed
troops to the DRC’s South Kivu province under the EACRF in late 2022, although
these forces had already been operating in the DRC since 2021.[1] FDNB troops
deployed under the EACRF in March 2023 to North Kivu for the first time to help
enforce an Angolan-brokered ceasefire and secure areas that M23 had vacated.[2]
Nearly 1,000 FDNB troops under the EACRF mission initiated a withdrawal from
several bases in November 2023, however, after they suffered losses to M23-RDF and
the Congolese government decided to not renew the EACRF’s mandate.[3]
Burundi and the DRC were simultaneously strengthening bilateral military cooperation.
The two allies signed a defense cooperation agreement in March 2023 and a technical
agreement to intensify and expand joint operations in August 2023 in undisclosed
deals.[4] These agreements enabled Burundian forces to deploy alongside the
Congolese army (FARDC) in North and South Kivu for operations against M23 under a
new command structure established outside the EACRF.[5] More than 1,000 FDNB
troops covertly deployed to North Kivu in October 2023 and into 2024 as ceasefire
arrangements collapsed and significant fighting resumed in late 2023.[6] The UN
Group of Experts reported that many of these Burundian forces wore Congolese army
uniforms and conducted offensive and defensive operations.[7]
The scale of Burundi’s involvement substantially increased after M23-RDF’s advances
in 2024 and peaked in late 2025. The FDNB deployed thousands of reinforcements in
South Kivu as M23 and the RDF consolidated territorial gains in southern North Kivu
in 2024 and helped defend Goma and Bukavu, the North and South Kivu provincial
capitals, respectively.[8] The loss of both cities to M23-RDF in early 2025 forced the
FDNB and FARDC to retreat southward and abandon weaponry, and the FDNB briefly
withdrew some contingents from South Kivu.[9] The FDNB then redeployed troops to
South Kivu and positioned forces in the Ruzizi Plain and Uvira town, with as many as
16 FDNB battalions, or up to 12,000 troops, across the province by April 2025.[10] The
FDNB’s deployment grew throughout 2025 to at least 18,000 troops in December 2025,
according to multiple security sources cited by French media in late 2025 and mid2026.[11] Congolese intelligence sources and an internal report from the Congolese
Ministry of the Interior and Security said that at least 29,000 FDNB troops in total had
completed rotations to the DRC between August 2022 and December 2025.[12]
Figure 1. M23 Advances Toward Goma and Masisi (January 2025)
Source: Liam Karr.
Burundi has withdrawn and redeployed forces to the DRC on a smaller scale since late
2025. M23-RDF forces captured Uvira town in a major offensive in early December,
triggering a withdrawal of most FDNB contingents from multiple areas in South Kivu.
[13] M23 announced a withdrawal from the town in December 2025 and fully withdrew
from the Ruzizi Plain under US political and diplomatic pressure on the group and
Rwanda in May 2026, however.[14] The FDNB began using military positions and
supply points on the Burundian side of the Lake Tanganyika border to incrementally
redeploy forces to South Kivu and Kalemie town in the DRC’s Tanganyika province in
late December and then to Uvira, the Ruzizi Plain, and the adjacent midlands in late
January.[15] Burundi has built up troops again in South Kivu since early 2026,
although on a smaller scale, with more than 6,000 deployed as of mid-June 2026,
according to several security sources cited by the French magazine Jeune Afrique.[16]
The independent Burundian media outlet SOS Médias Burundi reported that DRC
President Félix Tshisekedi and Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye agreed to
reinforce troop deployments, expand drone capabilities, and strengthen military
intelligence during Ndayishimiye’s state visit to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, in
late June 2026.[17] CTP recorded that Ndayishimiye has made at least 11 publicized
trips to Kinshasa between July 2021 and August 2026.[18]
Figure 2. M23 and Allies Activity in South Kivu (May 2026)
Source: Yale Ford and Claire Schreder.
Burundi’s heightened involvement against M23 and Rwanda in recent years is an
inflection in the scale and focus of prior Burundian military deployments to the
eastern DRC. Burundi periodically sought to hunt down Burundian armed opposition
groups based in the DRC in the 2010s. The FDNB conducted multiple rounds of joint
operations with the FARDC against the Forces nationales de libération (FNL), a
Burundian rebel group and former political party, in South Kivu between late 2010 and
mid-2014.[19] In the DRC in mid-2014, Burundian intelligence services coordinated
military training for the Imbonerakure, civilians of the affiliated youth wing of
Burundi’s ruling party, the Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie–Forces
Pour la Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD-FDD), in FDNB uniforms.[20] FDNB
members helped traffic arms and ammunition to Congolese militia groups that were
fighting Burundian rebel groups in South Kivu in 2017.[21] The FDNB and
Imbonerakure militants conducted a series of cross-border incursions and attacks
targeting a group called the RED–Tabara in South Kivu between late 2018 and mid2020.[22] RED is short for Résistance pour un État de Droit au Burundi, and the RED–
Tabara is Tutsi-led group that formed in April 2011 after the 2010 elections in Burundi
to oppose the Hutu-dominated government. The RED–Tabara later absorbed FDNB
defectors who participated in a failed coup attempt in Burundi in May 2015.[23]
Burundi formalized and began expanding its military presence in the DRC in 2021.
Burundi signed its first major bilateral military cooperation agreement with the DRC in
early 2021. Ndayishimiye visited Kinshasa for his first significant meeting with
Tshisekedi in July 2021, which likely led to the clandestine deployment of several
hundred FDNB and more than a thousand Imbonerakure to South Kivu for operations
against RED–Tabara and FNL in the South Kivu highlands beginning in December
2021 and continuing in another significant wave in August 2022.[24] The number of
Burundian rebel groups with rear bases in South Kivu had increased after 2015, but
RED–Tabara’s combat strength and capacity to pose a significant threat to Burundi had
weakened.[25]
The operations were a mixed success but allowed the FDNB to expand its footprint in
South Kivu. Burundi repeatedly denied that its troops were fighting in the DRC and
disclosed little information about troop casualties.[26] The FDNB and Imbonerakure
reportedly suffered heavy losses in the fighting in late 2021 and early 2022.[27] Some
Burundians who participated in the operations told the Burundi Human Rights
Initiative (BHRI) in July 2022 that the operations were “ill-prepared.”[28] UN Experts
cited several sources in December 2022 who claimed that joint operations in South
Kivu began prioritizing the FNL, after the FNL’s leader allegedly communicated with
Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, Burundi’s former prime minister whom the Burundian
government had accused of plotting a coup in September 2022 and later arrested.[29]
The FDNB continued to use the Imbonerakure, which further integrated with FDNB
troops, during operations and increased collaboration with Congolese armed groups
that acted as scouts and proxies in the fighting in late 2022.[30] The FDNB then
expanded its area of operations in South Kivu and continued to deploy more troops in
late 2022 and early 2023.[31]
Figure 3. Burundi’s Military Operation in the DRC
Source: Burundi Human Rights Initiative, An Operation of Deceit: Burundi's Secret
Mission in Congo, July 2022, p. 6, https://burundihri.org/rep/Report-July-2022Engl.pdf.
Burundi has emerged as a strategic military partner to the Congolese government
and its allies, providing important manpower and playing a key operational role in
the DRC coalition against M23 and Rwanda. Burundian forces serve as the backbone
of the coalition’s defense, particularly in South Kivu. The FDNB has participated in
every major engagement in North and South Kivu since at least late 2024, often
fighting on the front lines alongside the FARDC and pro-Congolese government
Wazalendo militia groups. DRC coalition forces, including elite FARDC units, have
even retreated and left FDNB troops to fight M23 alone in some major battles.[32] The
FDNB deployed 10 of its reported 16 battalions in the DRC in the Ruzizi Plain to
anchor the defensive front against M23-RDF on the most important line of southward
advance for most of 2025.[33] Two security sources told Jeune Afrique that “several
thousand” additional FDNB troops deployed to the front line in the Ruzizi Plain after
M23 launched the Uvira offensive.[34] SOS Médias Burundi reported in early May
2026 that Congolese authorities in Uvira have increasingly viewed the FDNB as a
“solution,” partly because the Congolese government is unable to control unruly militia
fighters that de facto control more territory than state forces in South Kivu.[35] The
FDNB’s deployments to Baraka town in South Kivu, which is roughly 50 miles south of
Uvira on the RN5 national highway, and to the DRC city of Kalemie in Tanganyika
Province—roughly 235 miles further south and the gateway town to the DRC’s
mineral-rich Katanga region—serve to block any further southward M23-RDF advance.
The Congolese government relies extensively on Burundian territory as an
administrative hub. The Congolese government relocated the South Kivu provincial
government to Uvira after the fall of Bukavu in early 2025.[36] Uvira is only 15 miles
west of Bujumbura, Burundi’s biggest city and economic capital. FARDC-aligned
military actors and Congolese officials, sometimes reportedly escorted by senior FDNB
officers, often travel through Bujumbura to reach Uvira and government-controlled
areas of South Kivu.[37] M23 claimed that the Congolese government relocated the
FARDC’s 33rd Regional Command headquarters, which covers Maniema and South
Kivu provinces, to Bujumbura in mid-2025.[38]
Pro-Congolese government forces began expanding their use of Burundi as a key rear
base and staging ground in early 2025. SOS Médias Burundi reported in March 2025
that CNDD-FDD members, elements of the FDNB, and members of the Forces
démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), some of whose senior leaders helped
perpetrate the 1994 Rwandan genocide, were training Imbonerakure militants to
prepare to deploy and reinforce DRC coalition units engaged against M23 and RED–
Tabara in the eastern DRC.[39] The M23-aligned investigative outlet Great Lakes Eye
claimed in July 2025 that Romanian private military contractors (PMCs) employed by
the Congolese government were training some FDNB units in Burundi.[40] The UN
Special Rapporteur on Burundi reported in September 2025 that Imbonerakure militants
were training in Burundi to deploy to the DRC.[41] SOS Médias Burundi reported in
late March 2026 that several thousand Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan fighters in
the DRC coalition had been conducting large-scale military exercises simulating
confrontation scenarios with M23 and Rwandan forces near Bujumbura under the
supervision of Belgian trainers since early February.[42]
The DRC coalition is also using Bujumbura’s international airport as a logistics hub for
military equipment and troops destined for the DRC. The coalition reportedly expanded
its use of Bujumbura’s airport in mid-to-late 2025 to transport weaponry and deploy
troops to South Kivu to support intensified joint ground and air operations against
M23.[43] Great Lakes Eye claimed in a report in mid-August 2026 that three FARDC
air force flights from Kinshasa landed at Bujumbura’s airport in early August with
military equipment for forces in South Kivu.[44] The report claimed that Congolese
aircraft had received authorization to land in Bujumbura for a three-month period from
July through October.[45]
Burundi is also playing a key role in ongoing offensive operations against M23 and
allied forces in in the Fizi highlands of South Kivu. The DRC coalition, alongside
PMCs from a firm owned by Erik Prince, a US private security contractor with ties to
US President Donald Trump’s administration, launched an offensive against allied
Twirwaneho forces in the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), M23’s political coalition,
around Minembwe town, a majority Banyamulenge area in the highlands roughly
50 miles southwest of Uvira town, in late January 2026.[46] Pro-Congolese government
forces and allied PMCs have since increased drone attacks on AFC forces and
maintained pressure on Minembwe town since the offensive. The DRC coalition
launched a second major offensive on Minembwe in late March, conducted regular air
attacks on AFC positions in May, and conducted a third major offensive against AFC in
June.[47] SOS Médias Burundi reported in mid-June 2026 that pro-Congolese
government forces, likely Congolese government-employed PMCs, are sharing or
supplying FDNB contingents with drones in the highlands.[48] AFC forces defeated
DRC coalition forces and dislodged them from the highlands in a strategic setback in
late June, however. CTP assessed that M23-RDF’s use of airpower and advanced
technology likely gave AFC forces a decisive advantage.[49]
DRC coalition forces are conducting a fourth major offensive to try to take Minembwe,
likely using Burundian territory as a rear base and key transit corridor into South Kivu.
M23-aligned sources claimed that the coalition began deploying thousands of
additional troops to Fizi district south of Minembwe in early August in advance of
another planned offensive.[50] Prince reportedly met with senior Congolese and
Burundian officials, including the FDNB chief of staff, in both Kinshasa and
Bujumbura, before crossing over into Uvira in mid-August.[51] Pro-Congolese forces
then launched an offensive against AFC fighters in the highlands on August 17.[52]
M23 and Rwanda have responded to the latest offensive in the highlands with drone
attacks and reportedly targeted high-ranking FDNB and FARDC officers and PMCs
who were planning new military operations in the highlands.[53]
Figure 4. M23 and Allies Activity in South Kivu (August 2026)
Source: Yale Ford and Abigail Taylor.
M23 and Rwanda have taken direct military action to degrade and end Burundian
military involvement in the eastern DRC. UN Experts cited sources close to M23 and
Rwanda in May 2024 who said that the FDNB’s deployment to fight M23 and the RDF
in North Kivu “further increased tensions” between Burundi and Rwanda and that the
RDF explicitly targeted FDNB troops on the battlefield.[54] CTP and the UN Experts
separately assessed that M23 and Rwanda likely conducted the Uvira offensive in part
to knock the FDNB out of the war and disrupt the use of Burundian territory as a rear
base supporting pro-government forces in South Kivu.[55] Ndayishimiye claimed in a
speech to defense and security forces in mid-December 2025 that Rwanda was seeking
to push Burundian forces out of the DRC to “remove obstacles to the conquest” of the
DRC.[56]
Figure 5. M23 and Allies Activity in South Kivu (December 2025)
Source: Yale Ford and Anping Zhu.
M23 and Rwanda may have destroyed a major FDNB base in a sabotage operation in
Bujumbura in late March 2026. An FDNB weapons depot at a military site known as
Base Camp in the southern part of Bujumbura was destroyed in a massive explosion,
affecting several districts in the city—some more than three miles away—for several
hours on March 31.[57] The blast reportedly killed dozens of people.[58] The FDNB’s
spokesperson claimed initially that a fire caused by a “serious electrical accident” in
the ammunition storage room detonated explosive material.[59] The depot was not
electrified, however.[60] Initial reports from Burundian and French outlets suggested
that a “sophisticated drone attack” may have triggered the ignition.[61] Ndayishimiye
claimed in mid-May that there was no evidence to suggest foul play, however.[62]
The base was an important logistics hub for the DRC coalition. CTP assessed when
Base Camp blew up that its destruction could have affected the FDNB’s operations in
the eastern DRC against M23.[63] SOS Médias Burundi cited a local witness who
claimed that the base had received a shipment of military equipment from the
Tanzanian army the week before the incident.[64] Great Lakes Eye had cited a source
close to the FDNB who claimed that the FDNB received significant military shipments
in Bujumbura between October and December 2025, including lethal equipment from a
Chinese state-owned defense company and another shipment through ports in Kenya
and Tanzania.[65]
Burundi–Rwanda Rivalry and Proxy Competition
Burundi and Rwanda have engaged in an escalating proxy competition in the
eastern DRC interrupted by short-lived periods of improved bilateral relations for
over a decade. Regional observers have described Burundi and Rwanda as “twin
states” that share many common national characteristics. Burundi and Rwanda emerged
from the 1990s with sharply divergent trajectories, however, although both remain lowincome countries. Rwanda’s Tutsi-majority ruling political party, led by Rwandan
President Paul Kagame, won a decisive military victory in the Rwandan civil war and
established a stable, autocratic one-party state that abolished de jure ethnic identities in
response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi minority, prioritized
rapid economic growth, and projected power beyond its borders. Burundi collapsed into
a 12-year civil war between 1993 and 2005 that ended in a negotiated power-sharing
settlement known as the Arusha Accords. The Hutu-dominated CNDD-FDD quickly
began consolidating its authoritarian one-party rule by politically subverting the
Arusha Accords, including ethnic power-sharing provisions designed to prevent
Burundi’s Hutu majority from dominating national politics.[66] The CNDD-FDD’s
gradual consolidation of Hutu-majority rule has strained relations with international
donors and increased ethnic tension in Burundi.[67]
Bilateral relations were largely smooth until the first M23 insurgency in 2012 and the
2015 attempted coup in Burundi. Kagame and Ndayishimiye’s predecessor, Pierre
Nkurunziza, were on good terms but reportedly fell out over the issue of M23, which
Nkurunziza had opposed, in 2012 and 2013.[68] Nkurunziza separately began
tightening his grip on power and setting conditions to serve an unconstitutional third
term, which provoked a political crisis in Burundi and led to the coup attempt in May
2015.[69] The West criticized, isolated, and sanctioned Burundi after Nkurunziza’s
security forces intensified repression on political opponents and civil society following
the failed coup.[70] Relations with Rwanda have never fully recovered since Burundi
subsequently closed its border with Rwanda and accused the Rwandan government of
supporting the coup and refusing to extradite the roughly 20 alleged plotters who had
fled to Rwanda.[71] Rwanda and Burundi continue to disagree on the process to
remove these individuals from Rwanda, which has further elevated bilateral tensions.
[72]
Burundi and Rwanda subsequently engaged in proxy conflict in which they backed
each other’s political enemies and eastern DRC-based armed opposition factions.
Rwanda reportedly armed and trained RED–Tabara in mid-to-late 2015 and early 2016.
[73] Nkurunziza accused Rwanda of supporting RED–Tabara attacks on Burundian
military positions in Burundi in late 2019.[74]
Burundi cultivated links with Rwandan rebel groups, including the FDLR and Rwanda
National Congress (RNC). Rwanda began accusing Burundi of meeting with and
hosting FDLR leaders around 2015.[75] UN Experts reported that Burundi began
arming and facilitating recruitment for the P5 group, a coalition of Rwandan opposition
groups aiming to topple the Rwandan government that included the RNC, which is led
by defectors from Kagame’s government, in 2018.[76] Rwanda accused Burundi of
working with Uganda to cement an alliance between the FDLR and the RNC in 2019.
[77] Rwanda also began to view the Imbonerakure, which began to play a more
militarized role in Burundi in 2015, as a security threat and claimed that the
Imbonerakure, Burundian intelligence agents, and the RNC were embedded in armed
groups in South Kivu.[78] Militants coming from Burundi conducted an attack in
southwestern Rwanda in December 2018.[79] Rwandan and Congolese intelligence
officials told the International Crisis Group (ICG) in late 2019 that Burundi was
hosting FDLR splinter elements from South Kivu, who had then deployed to Burundi’s
border with Rwanda.[80]
Relations improved for a brief period between 2020 and early 2023. Ndayishimiye
initially rejected Kagame’s overture to improve relations in July 2020, a few weeks
after Ndayishimiye took office in June.[81] Officials from both sides began meeting at
several levels of government and the military in August 2020, however, which led to
several detainee swaps.[82] In July 2021, Rwanda handed over 19 RED–Tabara
combatants to Burundi in July 2021 who had crossed illegally into Rwanda in
September 2020. Burundi then transferred 11 FNL combatants to Rwanda in October
2021. [83] The swaps helped lead Burundi to reopen its side of the border in October
2022.[84] Kagame went to Bujumbura for the first time since late 2011 in February
2023 for a regional summit and met privately with Ndayishimiye to discuss regional
security challenges.[85] Rwanda encouraged RED–Tabara’s leader to surrender to
Burundi in early 2023.[86] The issues of Rwanda’s alleged support for RED–Tabara
and the alleged 2015 coup plotters remained unresolved, however.[87]
Increased regional competition and M23’s expanding territorial control began to
reignite bilateral tensions. Kagame claimed that Rwanda had the right to intervene
militarily in the DRC in a speech in February 2022, following military campaigns that
Burundi and Uganda had launched against rebels from their countries based in the DRC
in late 2021.[88] The FDNB had begun covertly deploying troops to the eastern DRC,
and M23 launched attacks on the FARDC and began receiving substantial military
support from the RDF in early to mid-2022, according to UN Experts.[89] Kagame
reportedly declined Burundi’s request to intervene for the release of FDNB soldiers
that M23 had captured in November 2023.[90]
Burundi cut ties with Rwanda in January 2024 amid a major diplomatic dispute,
leading both sides to resume collaboration with proxy groups that has only heightened
in subsequent years. Burundi alleged that Rwanda aided RED–Tabara after the group
conducted a raid in western Burundi in late 2023. Rwanda denied the accusations, but
Burundi eventually suspended diplomatic relations with Rwanda, deployed troops to its
northern border with Rwanda, and unilaterally closed its border with Rwanda again in
January 2024.[91] Ndayishimiye added to tensions in January 2024, when he called
Kagame a “liar” in a speech and told young people to fight until the people of Rwanda
put pressure on their government while in Kinshasa for Tshisekedi’s inauguration for a
second term.[92] UN Experts reported that both sides then resumed collaboration with
proxy armed groups in South Kivu, as Rwanda increased support to RED–Tabara,
which also aligned with M23 and Twirwaneho, and Burundi reestablished ties with the
FDLR and an FDLR splinter group in South Kivu in 2023 and 2024.[93]
Another fragile détente in 2025 collapsed with the M23-RDF offensive on Uvira, which
followed failed efforts to peacefully secure Burundi’s military withdrawal from the
eastern DRC. M23 had halted its first southward advance just before the beginning of
the Burundi-DRC border in South Kivu in February 2025, which CTP assessed was the
result of Burundi and Rwanda likely reaching a deal to deconflict in the eastern DRC.
[94] These efforts decreased the risk of a wider regional war between the two countries
in the short term, despite multiple politically charged public statements that
Ndayishimiye then made against Rwanda.[95] M23 officials unsuccessfully attempted
to negotiate the withdrawal of Burundian troops from the DRC in two separate trips to
Bujumbura in October and late November 2025, as Burundi was reinforcing the DRC
coalition in South Kivu and M23 was setting conditions for the offensive on Uvira.[96]
Burundian and Rwandan security officials then met on their shared border to deconflict
twice in December after Uvira’s fall.[97]
Figure 6. M23 Advances Southward in South Kivu Province (March 2025)
Source: Liam Karr, Yale Ford, and Nick Markiewicz.
Domestic Political Drivers of Burundi's DRC Involvement
Burundian elites have strong self-serving incentives to leverage the war with M23
and Rwanda and related ethnic narratives for domestic political purposes and use
ethnic narratives to frame regional insecurity in ways that mobilize and
consolidate domestic support and justify crackdowns on regime and domestic
opponents. Ethnic discrimination against minorities in Burundi has continued despite
efforts after the civil war. A coalition of Burundian civil society groups said in a report
to the UN in October 2025 that “some Tutsis” are “automatically perceived” as
government opponents and face discrimination, exclusion from public office,
surveillance, arbitrary arrest, intimidation, and forced exile.[98] The report said that
Burundi formally prohibits ethnic discrimination, but ethnic identity and political
loyalty remain closely linked in practice.[99] A Burundian diplomat for the African
Union (AU) said on social media in May 2026 that ethnic discrimination against the
Tutsi “remains a concern” in Burundi.[100]
Burundian elites weaponize ethnic narratives to help bolster support within and outside
of the CNDD-FDD. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and 45 other nonprofit organizations
assessed that “hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric” remained prevalent at the
“highest level” of the Burundian government in a letter to the UN Human Rights
Council in August 2025.[101] HRW reported separately that Imbonerakure members
and local officials engaged in “discriminatory practices” against Tutsi in Burundi in
2025, targeting individuals suspected of “interacting” with M23 or Rwanda.[102] A
Burundian journalist and director of a private radio station said in May 2025 that
Ndayishimiye deliberately amplified “intercommunal tensions” and the perceived
security threat from Rwanda to consolidate power ahead of the June 2025 elections.
[103] Banyamulenge community members said that their families were “stigmatized”
and they were “accused of being Tutsis” with ties to the “the president of Rwanda” and
M23 during arrests of Banyamulenge and Congolese students in Bujumbura in February
2025.[104]
Ethnic extremists within Burundi and the Great Lakes region, including hardline
factions within the CNDD-FDD, have linked the eastern DRC conflict to a broader
conspiracy that the Tutsi want to install another Tutsi-led regime in Burundi as part of
broader ambitions to establish regional hegemony. M23 and Rwanda’s expanding
influence in the DRC is a factor that plays into this narrative and further fuels racism
within these factions against the Tutsi and other ethnic minorities in Burundi.
The Burundian regime has exploited ethnic narratives and the M23-RDF threat more
broadly to crack down on regime enemies and domestic opponents. Burundi’s
intelligence service (SNR) made a series of arrests, including the secretary-general of
Burundi’s football federation, in March 2025 over WhatsApp messages in which some
allegedly expressed support for M23.[105] A young person told SOS Médias Burundi in
February 2026 during systematic searches of personal belongings in Bujumbura by
police officers and Imbonerakure militants, whom are drawn predominantly from
Burundi’s Hutu majority, that authorities told him that they had stopped him because he
“looked like an M23 rebel” and forced him to open his bag.[106] SNR agents
arbitrarily arrested a Congolese aid worker and prominent blogger critical of the
Congolese and Burundian governments for an “illegal parking” violation in Bujumbura
in late May 2026.[107] Burundian authorities regularly warn the public about the risk
of infiltration by destabilizing forces, without specifying who they are referring to.
These regional ethnic politics may be an important political factor influencing the
FDNB’s operations around Minembwe or the FDNB’s justification and framing of those
operations. Members of the Banyamulenge community, who are Congolese
Rwandaphones that migrated to the DRC long ago, primarily inhabit Minembwe and
have faced discrimination from Congolese authorities for decades. HRW cited a local
Banyamulenge leader in May 2025 who said that Wazalendo fighters, who fight
alongside the FDNB in joint operations, told Banyamulenge locals during attacks on
several villages in March that they had come to “clean out” the Banyamulenge.[108]
The FARDC, FDNB, and allied forces had reportedly encircled and cut off all lines of
communication and movement for more than 170,000 people around Minembwe, which
blocked humanitarian access and the entry of essential goods and caused basic
commodity prices to soar, between May 2025 and June 2026 with temporary pauses in
late 2025 and in April 2026.[109] The FDNB spokesperson told the BBC in November
2025 that “those [civilians] who have come from Minembwe are obviously working
with the enemy, and they must not pass through.”[110] DRC coalition air attacks have
struck livestock, radio stations, schools, health facilities, and churches during the
several offensives conducted in early to mid-2026.[111] The deliberate starvation of
civilians, including through targeting livestock and humanitarian aid, and
indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure are violations of international law.
[112] HRW said in April 2026 after three specific attacks on civilians in March that it
was “unclear” whether the attacks sought to strike military targets.[113]
These measures are part of a wider political strategy that Burundian elites use to blame
external enemies for pressing domestic challenges.[114] Ndayishimiye has repeatedly
condemned what he claims is a “small group” in Burundi that is allegedly “plundering
billions” and seeking to undermine Burundi’s economy.[115] Ndayishimiye claimed
that the cause of widespread fuel shortages in Burundi in 2023 was due to “traitors to
the nation.”[116] ICG assessed in February 2026 that some Burundian political leaders
may see “upping anti-Rwanda rhetoric” as a means to “rally support” and defuse
growing dissatisfaction about the state of the country.[117] Ndayishimiye accused
Burundian religious leaders of “politicizing poverty” and “behaving like the eyes of the
colonizer” after they denounced the country’s mounting social and economic challenges
in a statement in June 2026.[118] The United States and several international nonprofit
organizations have cited endemic corruption as the primary reason driving Burundi’s
poor business climate and public service provision, which made Burundi the poorest
country in the world on a GDP per capita basis in 2025.[119]
Burundi's Strategic Interests in the Eastern DRC
Burundi’s involvement in the eastern DRC is likely also driven by its
interdependence with cross-border informal economic networks in the eastern
DRC and Burundian elites’ close economic ties to the Congolese government.
Burundi relies on the DRC as an important export market and transit corridor for
formal and informal trade. The local economies in Uvira and Bujumbura are
intertwined, similar to how Goma and Bukavu are linked to western Rwanda, as
Burundi depends on the Uvira-Bujumbura land corridor to import fuel and to transport
the 90 percent of its total exports to the DRC.[120] At least two decades of reporting
from the UN Experts and regional media outlets has established that Burundi is a
conduit for and beneficiary of resources extracted from South Kivu, principally gold
and tropical hardwood.[121] Smuggled Congolese gold is often transported to
Bujumbura, blended into official Burundian exports, or re-smuggled onward to the
United Arab Emirates and other markets.[122] Burundian officials, border personnel,
and military elements often engage from these activities.[123] Gold is now Burundi’s
most valuable export product and a main source of currency, with official exports
tripling in 2025.[124]
The Congolese government has given Burundian elites additional economic benefits for
supporting the DRC militarily. Several sources told UN Experts in mid-2024 that
Ndayishimiye received “economic incentives” from Tshisekedi, including personal
benefits and likely broader financial support for the Burundian government, to deploy
troops to the DRC.[125] Several regional reports have claimed that the Congolese
government pays up to $5,000 per FDNB soldier deployed in the DRC to the Burundian
government in addition to their regular salaries under the August 2023 deal.[126] UN
Experts reported in mid-2024 that the DRC agreed to overlook illicit gold smuggling
from South Kivu to Burundi facilitated by individuals linked to the CNDD-FDD party
and FDNB in exchange for Burundi’s military support.[127] SOS Médias Burundi cited
reports from Congolese security sources in June 2026 who claimed that the Congolese
government offered Burundian officials additional “benefits related to gold mining” in
South Kivu in exchange for increased military support to help the DRC regain control
of areas controlled by Twirwaneho in the highlands.[128]
Burundi likely backs the Congolese government militarily because it views South
Kivu as its sphere of influence and would face a heightened national security
threat if M23 controlled the Burundi-DRC border, as the group did when Uvira
fell. Burundi has historically viewed the eastern DRC as a strategically critical sphere
of influence, though its direct intervention has fluctuated.[129] The BHRI assessed in
July 2022 that FDNB and Imbonerakure fighters likely viewed the initial deployments
to South Kivu in late 2021 and early 2022 as an opportunity to “loot crops from fields,
steal cattle and carry out abuses against Congolese civilians.”[130] Burundian officials
had said repeatedly that Uvira would not fall into the hands of M23. The CNDD-FDD’s
secretary-general said in January 2026 that the FDNB’s disengagement from South
Kivu in late 2025 after the fall of Uvira was not a real withdrawal because South Kivu
was “practically our home” and Burundi could “return whenever we want.”[131]
The geography and terrain of the DRC-Burundi borderlands places Burundi at an
operational disadvantage against a potential attacker, such as M23, unless it holds a
strong military position inside the eastern DRC. Burundi’s low strategic depth—the
lack of geographic space between western Burundi and the front lines in South Kivu—
means that a strictly defensive posture leaves Bujumbura vulnerable by risking
infiltration across Burundi’s extremely porous border with the DRC and ceding the
high ground above Uvira and Bujumbura to enemy forces. Uvira, which sits on the
northern tip of Lake Tanganyika, is a pivotal regional crossroad that controls access to
Bujumbura to the east, the Ruzizi Plain to the north, and mineral-rich areas in the DRC
further south. The highlands around Minembwe town in Fizi district sit high above and
within artillery range of Uvira and Bujumbura and provide access to the Mwenga
highlands to the north, the lakeside lowlands toward Fizi and Baraka towns, and
approaches to Bujumbura’s western flank through Uvira. Rwanda to the north and
M23’s complete control of South Kivu would effectively encircle Burundi, cutting off
nearly half of its land border and leaving Tanzania to the east as its only remaining
open land route.
Figure 7. Borderlands Between the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi
Source: Yale Ford.
Burundian officials viewed the loss of its positions in the eastern DRC to M23 and
Rwanda as a major national security threat. The extension of M23-controlled territory
up to Burundi’s frontier and in the highlands threatens Burundi’s influence in South
Kivu and the country’s political and economic center of gravity in Bujumbura. The UN
Security Council noted that Burundi had viewed the fall of Uvira as a “red line.”[132]
The Burundian foreign minister said that “what threatens Uvira also threatens
Bujumbura” after M23 captured Uvira.[133] Burundi closed its border with the DRC
for 10 weeks, and Burundi and Rwanda both reportedly deployed troops and heavy
military equipment initially to the respective sides of their border as tensions rose
during the Uvira offensive.[134] Ndayishimiye said in his mid-December 2025 speech
to defense and security forces that Burundi had a “bad neighbor” to the north in
Rwanda and accused Rwanda of harboring threats against Burundi.[135] Ndayishimiye
said in May 2026 that Rwanda maintained “malicious intentions” toward Burundi and
that Rwanda posed a threat as long as M23 and the RDF remained near Burundi’s
border with the DRC.[136] Ndayishimiye has repeatedly justified Burundi’s
intervention in the DRC by invoking a Kirundi proverb that urges people to help a
neighbor put out a fire before it spreads to their own home.[137]
The War's Domestic Costs and Political Implications for Burundi
The war could cause heightened instability in Burundi in the short to medium
term, as it has exacerbated domestic economic challenges and is reportedly
contributing to growing discontent and internal rifts within the FDNB, however.
Burundi has taken substantial manpower losses. At least six senior FDNB officers,
major and above, have almost certainly died fighting in the eastern DRC since
November 2023, based on local reporting.[138] Some insider sources have estimated
that several hundred, or even several thousand, Burundian soldiers have died fighting
in the eastern DRC.[139] M23 claimed that it arrested hundreds of FDNB soldiers
during the Uvira offensive.[140] DRC coalition forces reportedly took heavy losses
when AFC forces repelled a major FARDC-FDNB offensive in the highlands in June
and July 2026, with one report indicating that between 100 and 150 FDNB troops died
in a single battle.[141] Most FDNB troops deployed to the eastern DRC have little air
cover, fight in difficult conditions, and are new recruits trained for only a few months
with inadequate equipment or logistics.[142]
Figure 8. Reported Burundian Army Officer Deaths in the DRC Since 2023
Source: Abigail Taylor, Yale Ford, and Tess Kesler.
Note: All sourcing is from public online sources and available upon request.
Burundian authorities have tried to suppress information and conceal combat losses to
the public, signaling that they see potential public backlash as a domestic vulnerability.
The FDNB has never officially acknowledged a single named fatality from the war in
the DRC or published a tally of their losses in the DRC. Ndayishimiye said that it was
“normal” for Burundian soldiers to die in the DRC “because they signed up for it” in a
speech in December 2023, however.[143] The FDNB has reportedly buried fallen
soldiers in haste and “total secrecy” without informing their families and barred
families from holding their own funerals or communicating with each other.[144] An
FDNB officer had said that the government is preventing families from mourning their
fallen to conceal Burundian combat losses in the DRC.[145] The Burundian
government reportedly also does not compensate families of those who died fighting in
the eastern DRC, unlike for families whose soldiers have died in the multinational
peacekeeping missions in Somalia.[146]
Figure 9. Notable Burundian Army Losses in the DRC Since 2024
Source: Abigail Taylor and Yale Ford.
The war has placed additional strain on the Burundian economy. Burundi’s economy
has deteriorated steadily since the coronavirus pandemic, as a series of internal and
external shocks disrupted supply chains and trade and led to persistent inflation and
chronic shortages of fuel, fertilizer, and basic goods. Foreign currency shortages have
led to the growth of black-market currency markets and contributed to a decision to
devalue the Burundian franc. Burundi has also relied more heavily on Tanzania to
export its minerals and as its main source of fuel, fertilizer, and other goods, most of
which are transported by road.
Burundi is now experiencing its most severe economic crisis since the civil war. The
economy deteriorated even further in 2025 due to chronic fuel shortages, rising prices,
and the war in the eastern DRC.[147] Political instability in Tanzania, driven by the
Tanzanian government’s crackdown on protesters following rigged elections in
November 2025, briefly disrupted trade flows to Burundi and worsened the situation.
[148] A source within Burundi’s revenue collection agency told the French
investigative outlet Africa Intelligence in December 2025 that a “few more days” of
disruption would have led to “serious shortages” of food stocks that Burundi imports
from Tanzania’s port in Dar es Salaam.[149] M23’s capture of Uvira put additional
strain on the Burundian economy by severing the main informal supply routes for
residents in Bujumbura and causing an influx of tens of thousands of refugees.[150]
The rising costs of the war are reportedly fueling growing discontent within the FDNB.
The Burundian government arrested and imprisoned between 300 and 500 soldiers who
had deserted their positions in North Kivu, reportedly due in part to unpaid
compensation and poor service conditions, in November 2023.[151] Africa Intelligence
reported in January 2025 that several senior FDNB officers were “unhappy” with
inadequate equipment for their troops and persistent leaks of its tactical movements in
the DRC, possibly facilitated by regime opponents.[152] The outlet reported separately
that M23 was trying to exploit disagreements among top Burundian government and
FDNB officials over continued military support to the DRC to pull Burundi into a
nonaggression pact during M23’s October 2025 meeting with Ndayishimiye.[153]
Great Lakes Eye claimed in an unverified report in December 2025 that Ndayishimiye
clashed with several of his senior FDNB officials over the next course of action and
continued measures to conceal the FDNB’s deployment in the DRC following the fall
of Uvira in December 2025.[154] A Belgian journalist reported in July 2026 that
“discontent” has been rising among Burundian elites amid the recent battlefield losses
and that Ndayishimiye is “under increasing pressure to recall his troops” from the
eastern DRC.[155]
The war could also further deepen ethnic tensions within Burundi’s security services.
Deep divisions have existed within the FDNB since the failed 2015 coup, marked by
mistrust between some CNDD-FDD-aligned members of the military and former
members of the Tutsi-majority Burundian Armed Forces.[156] ICG assessed in June
2024 that the FDNB’s poor service conditions could exacerbate ethnic tensions between
Hutu and Tutsi.[157] The Burundian government had created the Force de réserve et
d’appui au développement (FRAD), a military reserve intended to provide civilian
volunteers with paramilitary training and involve them in national development
projects, in 2022.[158] The CNDD-FDD activated the force in 2026 and reportedly
staffed its first training cohort with more than 200 veteran Imbonerakure members who
had deployed to the DRC.[159] The FRAD effectively gives the party’s predominantly
Hutu former-rebel leadership a parallel force that circumvents the constitutional
provision that Burundi’s defense and security services cannot be more than 50 percent
of any single ethnic group. SOS Médias Burundi reported in May 2026 that FRAD
trainees conducting exercises in western Burundi were predominantly Hutu and added
to concerns that the CNDD-FDD is potentially seeking to take control over the security
sector outside the Arusha power-sharing framework ahead of the 2027 presidential
election.[160]
Figure 10. Senior Military Leadership
Source: Abigail Taylor and Yale Ford.
The FDNB’s involvement in the South Kivu highlands may be contributing to ethnic
strife in Burundi. The report from the Burundian civil society groups to the UN in
October 2025 said that Burundi’s military presence in areas inhabited by the
Banyamulenge in the DRC and other ethnic groups is causing heightened ethnic
tensions and contributing to regional proxy competition.[161] The civil society groups
warned that Burundi’s military presence risks deepening ethnic polarization in Burundi
and the DRC, reviving ethnic “stereotypes” that fueled past conflict, and undermining
Burundi’s stability and efforts toward “social cohesion.”[162]
Ndayishimiye is jockeying to keep and consolidate power within the CNDD-FDD as
domestic challenges exacerbated by the Burundian government’s war costs
continue to mount. Ndayishimiye has included members of other CNDD-FDD factions
in his government, but tensions within the party were high ahead of a party congress in
January 2026.[163] Ndayishimiye has been at odds with Révérien Ndikuriyo, a power
broker in the CNDD-FDD who secured a second five-year term for the party’s
secretary-general at the January congress.[164] Ndikuriyo leads a rival faction within
the party and was a hardline Nkurunziza loyalist, whose networks Ndayishimiye has
sought to weaken since taking office.[165] Ndayishimiye had elevated several of his
loyalists within the party after the June 2025 elections, raising concerns among some
party members that Ndikuriyo was being sidelined, according to Africa Intelligence.
[166]
Competing political structures within the CNDD-FDD have been vying for influence
for several years. The Burundian presidency controls the FDNB, the SNR, the CNDDFDD’s decision-making body, and the prosecution service, whereas the party secretariat
controls the Imbonerakure and provincial party structures. Ndayishimiye and Ndikuriyo
reportedly disagreed over the role of the Imbonerakure, with Ndayishimiye pushing to
steer them toward community and development activities, while Ndikuriyo wanted to
mobilize them politically and expand their security functions.[167] The government’s
removal and subsequent arrest of Bunyoni, a prominent Nkurunziza-era figure accused
of plotting the September 2022 coup, weakened a powerful network within the CNDDFDD aligned with Ndikuriyo and strengthened Ndayishimiye’s position against internal
rivals.[168]
The eastern DRC war and the handling of relations with Rwanda is likely a weak spot
for Ndayishimiye. Ndikuriyo has maintained a hawkish approach to Rwanda since at
least 2017.[169] The BHRI assessed in July 2022 that Ndayishimiye likely authorized
the anti-RED–Tabara operations in the DRC in late 2022 to “placate hardliners” in his
government, many of whom helped plan the operations and had “perceived him as
weak.”[170] UN experts reported in mid-2024 that the failed détente between Burundi
and Rwanda and subsequent escalation of bilateral tensions and proxy competition in
mid-2023 was a “political failure and humiliation” for Ndayishimiye.[171] The report
said that Ndikuriyo’s faction portrayed him as having been “outsmarted” by Rwanda
and pressed him to distance himself from Rwanda.[172] Ndikuriyo’s strong influence
over the Imbonerakure, which functions as a highly organized grassroots movement
that often acts as a parallel security force, and his consistently hawkish views on
security have allowed him to appear more decisive on state and security matters than
Ndayishimiye at times.
Ndikuriyo’s recent reelection may have been part of a deal to delay a looming power
struggle and keep the party united ahead of the 2027 elections. Africa Intelligence
reported that Tanzanian and Congolese authorities stepped in to defuse internal
tensions ahead of the January meeting.[173] The report said that Ndayishimiye made
minor concessions to secure the backing of Ndikuriyo’s wing and preserve access to the
CNDD-FDD’s economic networks for the 2027 campaign.[174] The party then named
Ndayishimiye as their presidential candidate for a second seven-year term at the next
party congress in April 2026.[175]
Ndayishimiye’s administration is now preparing for the upcoming election amid tense
intraparty relations. Africa Intelligence reported that Ndayishimiye shifted focus to
tackling the country’s economic crisis and poverty challenges, which have been sources
of criticism from his electorate and several senior members within the CNDD-FDD
since 2022, after the reconciliation with Ndikuriyo.[176] The outlet had reported in
April 2024 that several CNDD-FDD lawmakers criticized Ndayishimiye for deflecting
responsibility for his government’s shortcomings onto senior officials and for blaming
people facing poverty for their own circumstances.[177] Ndayishimiye framed himself
as the leader who rescued Burundi from crisis and pointed to certain state efforts to
improve the economic crisis in an interview with the BBC in August 2026.[178] Africa
Intelligence reported in August 2026 that an arrest campaign that has been ongoing
since March 2026 may be part of an effort to purge the CNDD-FDD ahead of the
elections, amid what party members described as an “atmosphere of mutual
surveillance” in which members are encouraged to denounce anyone seen as
“potentially subversive.”[179]
Burundi's Role and Implications for the Washington Peace Accords
Burundi has also started to assume a larger political role in support of the
Congolese government outside of formal peace processes. Ndayishimiye and Kenyan
President William Ruto, who is a close ally of Rwanda, were the two African
guarantors of the US-mediated Washington Peace Accords (WPA) signed in December
2025 between the DRC and Rwanda.[180] Rwanda has remained skeptical of Burundi’s
assumption of leadership roles in the AU and other regional forums, arguing that
Burundian involvement as a major state actor in the war undermines its credibility as a
neutral mediator. Ndayishimiye assumed the rotating chairmanship of the AU, which is
also a guarantor to the WPA and plays regional mediating role, in February 2026.[181]
The Rwandan foreign minister said in in February 2026 that Rwanda was demanding
that Ndayishimiye refrain from “gaining the upper hand” by interfering in negotiations
led by the AU.[182]
Burundi often supports positions defended by the DRC in various regional forums.
Burundi has been the most outspoken EAC member in opposing Rwanda’s role in
eastern DRC. Ndayishimiye rebuked his own foreign minister after he criticized
Qatar’s “negative role using its influence and cash to dissuade” the United States from
taking action against Rwanda in a now-deleted post on social media in January 2026.
[183] The Burundian foreign minister released a statement in early June 2026 saying
that the WPA have “not been fully respected” after meeting with a Tshisekedi adviser in
Bujumbura.[184]
Burundi is also now helping mediate internal Congolese politics. Ndayishimiye acted
as a direct intermediary between Tshisekedi and the opposition and civil society
members when he hosted them to discuss a potential Congolese national dialogue and
various political challenges facing the DRC in early July 2026.[185] Tshisekedi then
committed in mid-July to organize a national dialogue after the meeting and what CTP
assessed was broader diplomatic pressure from his close regional allies.[186]
Figure 11. Key Players in the Congolese National Dialogue
Source: Yale Ford.
Burundi’s lack of inclusion in regional US-backed peace frameworks will almost
certainly continue to undermine efforts to build trust, advance peace and regional
stability, and facilitate a sustainable end to the war given Burundi’s major
regional role. Burundi’s formal absence from the WPA has been one significant factor
undermining the WPA. The WPA aims to de-escalate fighting in the eastern DRC as a
first step to a more comprehensive political solution by instituting a ceasefire between
Congolese and Rwandan state forces, addressing security and political concerns that
each side maintains, and cutting both countries’ support for nonstate actors. The
framework does not account for Burundi, however, as the third state party in the war
that has its own incentives for its involvement and ties to local nonstate groups.
Critical Burundian military support to the Congolese government has effectively
provided the DRC with a loophole to continue supporting and escalating military
operations against M23 and AFC backed by Rwanda amid limited international pressure
on the Congolese government to pursue a political solution with M23. The continued
escalation of military operations is contrary to ceasefire efforts and the WPA’s stated
intents for a “negotiated, political resolution” over a military solution and to “prevent a
renewal of hostilities that may harm the peace process.”[187] Rwanda has cited
Burundi’s involvement and military support to the DRC coalition as a spoiler to deescalation efforts and a residual security threat, thereby disincentivizing Rwanda from
fully complying with the WPA and setting conditions for Rwanda to justify not
complying with its security obligations under the WPA and withdraw its troops fully
from the eastern DRC.
Burundi’s involvement also increases the risk of wider regional escalation that could
derail US peace efforts. Burundi retains both the capability and the incentive to
unilaterally undermine any DRC-Rwanda agreement that threatens its strategic interests
in eastern DRC, particularly in South Kivu, while its own security concerns provide
plausible deniability for maintaining a military presence in the DRC. These interests
include much-needed direct economic support from the DRC, opportunities to sustain
elite patronage networks, and political factors tied to the conflict that Ndayishimiye
and the CNDD-FDD use to consolidate and compete for power domestically. The lack
of a lasting peace agreement between the DRC and M23 additionally limits regional
pressure or scrutiny on Burundi that would meaningfully constrain its military
involvement or deter actions that could undermine de-escalation. Burundi’s deepening
military and political alignment with the DRC outside of the WPA also contributes to
mutual distrust between Burundi and Rwanda, given their history of strained relations
and animosity.
Burundi’s military deployments in the DRC and other areas of interest to the
United States may simultaneously enhance its standing with the United States,
however. Burundi is reportedly in active discussions to join the UN-backed
multinational force proposed to secure the Gaza Strip in the Middle East under a USbrokered postwar plan.[188] Burundi is also already part of the AU peacekeeping
mission in Somalia, where the United States has sought to off-load more responsibility
in the fight against al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab to regional partners.
Growing defense cooperation with the United States creates a foundation for increased
US investment and deeper economic cooperation, particularly regarding Burundi’s
substantial underdeveloped reserves of nickel and rare earth elements. Burundi signed a
contract with an American lobbying firm to help attract US investment two weeks after
the WPA’s signing in December 2025.[189] The US State Department facilitated the
signing of a three-year deal between US mining company KoBold Metals and the
Burundian government to support the development of the country’s mining sector by
digitizing Burundi’s geological data and using artificial intelligence to identify
prospective mineral deposits in March 2026.[190] The State Department facilitated a
separate deal between Australian company Lifezone Metals and Burundi to support the
development of Burundi’s largest nickel deposit in March.[191] The Atlantic Council
noted in April that Burundi holds strategic importance for the United States with its
minerals and contributions to multinational peacekeeping and that its involvement in
the eastern DRC war makes it “more relevant” to US policymakers who want to shape
regional “security outcomes.”[192]
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