The Blue Helmet mission in eastern Congo is certainly not considered a success, according to President Felix Tshisekedi's assessment. The MONUSCO peacekeepers, part of one of the largest, longest, and most expensive in UN history, are unpopular with the local population. Its successes are barely measurable, Tshisekedi has emphasized repeatedly since taking office as President of the DR Congo in 2019.

Tshisekedi has urged the United Nations to prepare for the step-by-step withdrawal of the Blue Helmets from his country.

The withdrawal had been decided: the Blue Helmets already withdrew from South Kivu in June 2024. North Kivu and Ituri provinces were scheduled to follow this year.

But then, everything changed.

M23 victory in North Kivu 

However, the M23 rebels' offensive in North Kivu has evidently led to a shift in the Congolese government's stance.

Kinshasa has become more cautious: "The withdrawal of the Blue Helmets must happen in a responsible manner", said DR Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner in a DW interview at the end of 2024.

By the time of this interview, a military offensive by the Rwanda-backed M23 group was already becoming evident.

Kayikwamba Wagner's words at the time turned out to be a forecast for what was yet to come: "We do not want the risks and security problems that will increasingly occur in North Kivu to be worsened by a hasty withdrawal of MONUSCO troops."

UN seeks pathways for stabilization

The UN Security Council addressed the situation in the DRC in a special session on Tuesday (January 28, 2025) in New York.

During the session, the deputy head of the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, Vivian van de Perre, urged the international community to act. According to her statement, the humanitarian situation in North Kivu had turned catastrophic, and the suffering there was "unimaginable."

She stressed that there was an urgent need for a "coordinated international approach."

While the extension of MONUSCO's mandate was not directly under discussion at the special UN session, one thing was made clear: The international community could not simply withdraw from North Kivu at this point, and leave the people there to fend for themselves.

Congolese Foreign Minister Kayikwamba Wagner also stressed that "(t)he MONUSCO soldiers help us get better information about the movements of Rwandan troops in the area," while reports from MONUSCO also provide independent information to UN bodies about what is happening in the conflict zone.

In other words, given the M23 rebels' offensive, Kinshasa, contrary to earlier statements, now appears to support the presence of MONUSCO in eastern Congo — at least for the time being.

MONUSCO troops didn't defend Goma

This is exactly what former German diplomat Martin Kobler is now calling for in an interview with DW. Kobler was in charge of leading the UN mission in eastern Congo from 2013 to 2015.

"[The UN in] New York bears much of the failure and the blame," says Kobler, adding that many aspects of the escalation in the region were directly linked to the the decision of the UN Security Council to gradually withdraw MONUSCO.

"I clearly believe that this withdrawal decision must be reversed," he told reporters, adding however that the peacekeepers in the DRC — who are still present with around 10,000 soldiers, including a 3,000-strong intervention brigade with a robust mandate — should have intervened much sooner.

Kobler recalls that back in 2013, MONUSCO had formed a protective ring around Goma alongside Congolese troops. 

"That worked back then. And it would have worked this time as well — if the political decision had been made," he said.

Frustration over insufficient intervention

From Kinshasa's perspective, the record of the MONUSCO peace mission still falls far short of expectations, says Tim Glawion, an expert on international security policy.

"The Congolese government saw a rebellion emerging through the M23 and hoped that MONUSCO soldiers would protect Goma. But that didn’t happen," he told DW.

Glawion says that the expectations of the population, as well as the government in Kinshasa, for the peacekeepers were disappointed, time and again.

In a recently published articlebased on years of research about military interventions in crisis zones, he suggests that "(i)f UN peace missions fail to protect people from armed militias, people get frustrated and begin to question or even protest against these missions."

Glawion concludes: "And not infrequently, the governments of the affected countries feel inclined to replace peacekeepers with private mercenaries from abroad, as happened in Mali and the Central African Republic, where Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group were hired."

Are private mercenaries more effective?

The Democratic Republic of Congo also tried the same approach: Until recently, there were around 300 Romanian mercenaries reported to be in eastern Congo.

They were hired by a local security company called "Congo Protection" to fight the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel militia.

The Romanian fighters are part of a mercenary group led by Horațiu Potra, a businessman who also provides bodyguards for the country's right-wing presidential candidate, Calin Georgescu.

However, their efforts were unsuccessful, as it has now become clear: Since January 30, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been organizing the evacuation of the mercenaries from Goma to Bucharest — via Kigali.

Tim Glawion believes that the use of mercenaries is not necessarily a more effective approach in fighting armed groups.

"In  Maliand the Central African Republic, Russian mercenaries were initially welcomed with enthusiasm, but I doubt that enthusiasm still holds because the Russian mercenaries committed atrocities against the population. The rebels they originally pushed back are now retaking cities in Mali and the Central African Republic, so it wasn't a long-term solution," he said in an interview with DW.

At the same time, the MONUSCO peacekeeping force has, in contrast to most mercenary groups, attracted criticism for remaining rather passive over the years, and has come even under more fire for doing very little to push back M23 rebels in recent weeks.

In contrast to other peacekeeping missions, MONUSCO actually has a rather "robust" mandate: The UN soldiers are not only there to protect the public but can also to take offensive action against militias in order to secure peace.

Critics argue that the countries involved in the mission should have interpreted their mandate more aggressively, repel the advance of armed groups and thus protect civilians.

This, they say, has been egregiously neglected.

Frejus Quenum contributed to this article.

Edited by: Sertan Sanderson