The Office of Foreign Assets Control has formally sanctioned Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense, as well as a microlending bank tied to money laundering on behalf of Congolese rebels.

The United States Department of the Treasury and the State Department have announced economic sanctions on the Rwandan Ministry of Defense and the Zigama Credit and Savings Bank for supporting a rebel group in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Washington has accused the Rwandan military of deploying thousands of troops to fight alongside the Congolese March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group, and of providing the group with financial and logistical support, including advanced weapons, surface-to-air missile systems, and jamming equipment.

The Treasury Department claimed the financial institution, long known in the West for its microlending in Rwanda, had facilitated financial transactions for M23 and its political wing, the Congo River Alliance, amounting to tens of millions of dollars. Zigama is also alleged to have played a role in the export of illicit conflict gold.

“Thousands of Rwanda Defense Force troops fight alongside M23 in North and South Kivu provinces and have supplied the group with weapons and training. Rwandan troops have also brought in surface-to-air missiles and jamming equipment that endanger civilian aviation,” the State Department wrote.

“The United States makes good on President Trump’s promise to hold Rwanda accountable for its commitments under the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent in the Treasury statement. “Rwanda must halt its support for M23 and withdraw its troops from eastern DRC.”

About Congo’s March 23 Movement

The origins of the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) date back to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, a mass campaign of violence by Rwanda’s Hutu majority against its Tutsi minority. Over the span of roughly 100 days, government-backed Hutu mobs murdered around 1 million Tutsis and insufficiently anti-Tutsi Hutus. The genocide came to an end after the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a majority-Tutsi rebel group led by Paul Kagame, invaded and took over Rwanda with support from neighboring Uganda; surviving Hutu genocidaires fled across the border into rural eastern Congo, where Hutu militias continued to operate against Kagame’s new government.

To confront these groups, Kagame launched an invasion of Congo in 1996, leading to the fall of longtime Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. In the aftermath of Mobutu’s fall, Congo devolved into a multi-sided civil war, in which many regions effectively seceded from the central government in Kinshasa far to the west. Rwanda was able to dominate much of eastern Congo through alliances with local militias.

M23 is named after a March 23, 2009 peace agreement between the Congolese government and an earlier militia group, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP). That militia was formed shortly after several units of former CNDP fighters integrated into the Congolese army (FARDC) launched a mutiny in April and May 2012. According to the UN, M23 is a Rwandan-backed, predominantly Tutsi rebel paramilitary group operating in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the DRC. It claims to protect ethnic Tutsis in the DRC from Hutu militias; in practice, according to UN reports, the group has sought to control local natural resources, such as gold and coltan.

The African nation continues to experience a severe ongoing armed conflict concentrated primarily in its eastern North and South Kivu provinces, where an estimated 120 armed groups are active. M23, by far the largest and most powerful of these groups, has already seized major cities from the Congolese government, including Goma and Bukavu. Rwanda denies having any direct military involvement, though these claims are widely seen as implausible; thousands of Rwandan troops and regional proxies remain active in the region.

“With support from Rwanda’s security apparatus, including the deployment of thousands of troops and provision of military equipment, logistics, and training, M23 has captured key population centers and mining areas in eastern DRC, where it has perpetrated human rights abuses, subjected civilians to exploitation and forced labor, and contributed to a severe humanitarian crisis marked by mass displacement,” the US Treasury Department warned.

Last December, the Trump administration brought leaders from both the DRC and Rwanda together to sign the “Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity” (Washington Accords), which called for ending the conflict while expanding trade and investment across the African Great Lakes region. Trump has since cited the Congo conflict as one of the approximately eight wars he claimed to have ended during his second term in office.

The State Department has said that Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense’s support for M23 violated the obligations and undermines the Washington Accords’ goals of “peace and prosperity.” It has called upon Rwanda to cease its support of M23, as well as any successor armed groups, and to withdraw its forces from eastern DRC.

“Armed groups and their state sponsors must not profit from the DRC’s natural resources. In the gold and coltan mining areas under M23 control, including Rubaya in North Kivu, civilians face forced labor, dangerous working conditions, and illegal taxation,” the State Department wrote, urging US partners and the private sector to examine supply chains closely.

What Do the Sanctions Mean for Rwanda?

Both the Rwandan MoD and Zigama are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13413, for their respective roles in materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing “financial, material, logistical, or technological support for, or goods or services in support” of the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF), which the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) previously sanctioned on March 2, 2026.

All property and interests in property of the MoD and Zigama are blocked and are to be reported to OFAC.

“Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all transactions by US persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of blocked persons,” the Treasury Department wrote.

This marks the fourth round of US sanctions against Rwandan-linked entities in 2026, following earlier penalties against senior military commanders in March and a gold refinery network in June.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. He has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines, and websites over a 30-year career in journalism, including Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author at Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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