PREVIEW
US restrictions on defence ministry and M23 financing come as five EU governments weigh new migration pact with Kigali
The United States Treasury tightened its sanctions regime against Rwanda for its war in eastern Congo-Kinshasa, by imposing financial sanction against the Ministry of Defence and Zigama Credit and Savings Society. The move will further sour US relations with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and suggests Washington is tilting towards Congo-Kinshasa’s President Félix Tshisekedi which has been calling for such measures for over a year.
Washington officials say Zigama, a Kigali-based financial institution, ‘has played a key role’ in facilitating Rwanda’s support for the March 23 Movement (M23) and its political wing, the Congo River Alliance, to the tune of ‘tens of millions of dollars’.
They add that Zigama has facilitated payments to entities in China and additional countries for weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment for the Rwandan Defence Force. It claims that Zigama has also enabled the transport of gold from mining sites in Congo’s Kivu-Sud province largely controlled by M23 and the RDF.
The sanctions freeze the entities' assets under US jurisdiction and ban US individuals and businesses from conducting transactions with them. The RDF was sanctioned in February (AC Vol 67 No 5, More pressure on Kigali). They reflect the US administration’s anger at Rwanda’s backsliding on the ‘Washington Accords’, supposed to be a peace deal brokered by President Donald J Trump that would end M23/RDF’s incursions into eastern Congo (AC Vol 66 No 25, Trump’s peace deal unravels as M23 seizes strategic eastern city).
Yet Rwanda remains in demand for European countries looking for ways to outsource migration control.
The accommodation centres built to house asylum seekers from the UK as part of an agreement with London that was scrapped in 2024 before being implemented, are now set to be used to host the European Union’s first ‘return hub’ for rejected asylum seekers.
Germany, Austria, Denmark, Greece and the Netherlands, are close to agreeing a pact with Kigali that would accommodate people who have received final return decisions while EU states arrange their removal to their countries of origin (AC Vol 67 No 14, Trump’s peace deal unravels as M23 seizes strategic eastern city).
The five EU governments, who have said that they want the hub to be operational for 100 people in early 2027, could finalise the agreement at a special migration meeting in Vienna on 16 November.
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