Investigation
Article reserved for subscribers
“Libération” investigated for several months the role played by French private security companies engaged on the side of the Congolese army against the March 23 Movement rebels. Paramilitary and business networks for whom war is a financial opportunity like any other and to which Kinshasa turns to find new allies and compensate for its poorly trained army.
This investigation was carried out thanks to a grant from the IJ4EU fund (Investigative Journalism for Europe).
When mysterious white-skinned soldiers appeared two years ago in the streets of Goma, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the rumor quickly spread. First on social networks, then to the corridors of Western embassies in the capital, Kinshasa, 1,500 kilometers away as the crow flies. It was rumored that after the Central African Republic and Mali, the mercenaries of the Wagner group had just set foot in the DRC, this giant of the Great Lakes region, four times the size of France. It's difficult to go unnoticed, aboard the Land Cruisers of soldiers of the Congolese Armed Forces, or in the aisles of supermarkets where they stock up on cigarettes and biscuits, in squads where youthful faces rub shoulders with faces marked by life. Sometimes a muffler pulled up to under the eyes protects them from dust and hides their identity. But, despite appearances, these mysterious armed men do not belong to the sprawling militia founded by the late
France
