On July 15, 1994, an unprecedented 250,000 Rwandan refugees crossed from Gisenyi (now Rubavu) into Goma, in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo—DRC).
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it was the largest single-day refugee movement on record.
The mass exodus followed the defeat of the former Armed Forces of Rwanda (ex-FAR) by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), which had taken control of the Ruhengeri prefecture and was advancing toward Gisenyi. Among the 250,000 refugees were approximately 10,000 FAR soldiers.
On July 16, 1994, the FAR’s Chief of Staff capitulated and crossed into Goma with French troops, alongside weapons, vehicles, towed guns, and light armored cars.
The next day, the RPA took Gisenyi, marking the official end of the war. By July 17, more than two million Rwandans had crossed into Zaire, overwhelming Goma, then home to just 300,000 residents.
Since then, successive Congolese governments have openly sponsored these forces. In 1998, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila recruited thousands of ex-FAR and Interahamwe fighters—over 20,000 in total, drawn from countries including the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Sudan, Zambia, and Malawi—to fight against the CNDP rebels.
Despite repeated calls by the Rwandan government for the United Nations and Kinshasa to disarm and relocate them, the Congolese government continued to harbour these forces.
They eventually regrouped as the Armée de Libération du Rwanda (ALiR), later rebranded as the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), and launched a campaign aimed at destabilizing Rwanda.
For the past 31 years, the FDLR has infiltrated Rwanda, massacred innocent civilians, spilled blood in DR Congo, and terrorised Tutsi communities across North and South Kivu.
Classified as a terrorist organisation by both the United States and the United Nations, the FDLR has never abandoned its aim to overthrow Rwanda’s legitimate government and to finish what it started in 1994—the extermination of the Tutsi.
We cannot forget the FDLR’s attacks on western and northern Rwanda between 1997 and 2000, which killed thousands, particularly genocide survivors and those accused of RPF ties. Their atrocities include the slaughter of Nyange students on March 18, 1997, the horrific ambush of a BRALIRWA bus in Nyamyumba on January 19, 1998—where victims were burned alive—and cross-border attacks such as the shelling of Gisura and Ruhara villages in Rubavu on July 15, 2012, and the Kinigi attack on December 2, 2012.
Despite this bloody record, the FDLR once had the audacity to write to the U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming: "We have never harmed Rwandans.”
Yet, some within the international community continue to ignore the FDLR’s existence or downplay its role as the root cause of instability in both Rwanda and Eastern DR Congo. Those who do acknowledge the group often minimise its threat, citing low troop numbers as evidence that it poses no real danger.
On July 4, 2025, as Rwanda celebrated Kwibohora 31, Radio France Internationale (RFI) hosted Christoph Vogel, a Great Lakes researcher and former member of the UN Group of Experts on the DR Congo. He claimed that the FDLR numbered fewer than 1,000 fighters in 2011 and only slightly more today. MONUSCO, meanwhile, puts the figure at 2,000—numbers they argue are too insignificant to threaten Rwanda’s security.
Such assessments, often echoed by UN experts, seem designed to downplay the FDLR’s threat while indirectly shielding Kinshasa by portraying Rwanda’s concerns as mere pretext for its actions in DRC.
The truth is, the FDLR has never been reduced to a harmless force of 1,000 fighters. Over time, with the support of Congolese authorities and under the coordination of generals such as Delphin Kahimbi (under Joseph Kabila) and Peter Cirimwami (under Félix Tshisekedi), the FDLR has consistently replenished its ranks and bolstered its offensive capabilities.
Recent reports indicate that 250 FDLR fighters have moved from Burundi’s Kibira forests to South Kivu to support Burundian forces, Mai-Mai militias, and FARDC in their fight against the M23/AFC. Unconfirmed reports from Bujumbura suggest that between 8,000 and 10,000 FDLR fighters are regrouping in Burundi, preparing to cross into DRC to join FARDC forces and Colombian mercenaries in operations to retake Bukavu and Goma.
According to social media sources, the FDLR’s numbers, including fighters spread across Bujumbura, South and North Kivu, Congo-Brazzaville, and Malawi, could range between 20,000 and 25,000.
The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) spokesperson, Brigadier General Ronald Rwivanga, recently stated that the FDLR’s current strength is between 7,000 and 10,000 fighters.
Regardless of the exact figure, the reality is this: the FDLR remains a live, active threat—not just to Rwanda, but to the stability of the entire Great Lakes Region. Their genocidal ideology continues to spread, and their decades-long campaign of terror cannot be dismissed with academic numbers games.
Rwanda knows this truth all too well. The world should stop pretending otherwise.