The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have returned to negotiations in Geneva, seeking to resolve a long-running dispute over armed groups and military presence in eastern Congo that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. At the heart of the impasse is the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a militia rooted in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that Kigali views as an existential threat operating from Congolese soil — a justification Kinshasa rejects as cover for what it calls expansionist ambitions. The talks run parallel to a separate Qatar-led dialogue between Kinshasa and the AFC-M23 alliance, whose fighters seized the city of Goma in January 2025, but with ceasefire violations still being reported on the ground, residents of eastern Congo say any diplomatic progress will only matter if it translates into an end to the fighting.