Rebels bar media from Rubaya disaster site

M23 is taking its programme of media censorship and narrative control up a notch.

Mute point: M23 forces are targeting journalists who report from rebel-controlled areas of the DRC

Lydia Namubiru

The M23 rebel group, which seized parts of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in early 2025, barred journalists from a disaster site this week. Landslides killed hundreds of people in the Rubaya mining area last week. Yet, “no reporter is allowed to go there”, a local journalist told The Continent.

This obstruction is the latest in a documented pattern of censorship.

In a report released last week, 20 journalists working in areas controlled by the AFC-M23 group told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) about violence, threats, detention, and censorship under the rebels.

In one case, a journalist details being beaten at an M23 checkpoint in Bukavu, the capital of North Kivu province, which the rebels seized in February 2025. “A soldier started slapping me for no reason and hurt me,” Cikala Mihigo told CPJ. The journalist was returning from a reporting assignment during which he interviewed family members of Congolese soldiers who fought against the M23 takeover. At the checkpoint, the soldiers had tried to search his bag, which he refused to let them do.

Many journalists, faced with rising censorship, have been forced to flee the rebel-controlled areas as a result. “CPJ has seen a surge in journalists’ requests for emergency support, reflecting an increasingly difficult media environment over the past 12 months,” the watchdog body said.

The New Humanitarian reported earlier that the rebels were going to great lengths to control the narrative on their capture of parts of the DRC, including by dictating what local media broadcasts. “As soon as the rebels entered, we changed our programming schedules,” a journalist from Lubero told the New Humanitarian in October. “News programmes, talk shows, and programmes dealing with security are no longer broadcast.”