Monthly Forecast: DRC – M23/AFC, Ceasefire Fragility, Sanctions Politics, and the Ebola Emergency as a Conflict Multiplier

Strategic Security Assessment

Monthly Forecast June 2026

Executive Summary

The Democratic Republic of Congo enters June 2026 under a severe convergence of armed conflict, diplomatic pressure, sanctions politics, and an active public health emergency of international concern that is compounding every existing vulnerability in the eastern DRC security environment.

The Security Council's June briefing on the DRC and the expected vote to renew the 1533 sanctions regime take place at a moment when the conflict is simultaneously experiencing tactical shifts and structural consolidation. M23/AFC's reported withdrawal from Uvira and other South Kivu positions under military and diplomatic pressure from the United States and the Congolese government is a notable development but must be assessed against the group's simultaneous consolidation of parallel governance, judicial, fiscal, and administrative structures in areas under its control. Tactical withdrawal from selected positions does not constitute strategic retreat when the underlying state-building ambition remains operative.

The Ebola outbreak in Ituri, now declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the WHO on 16 May, has become a genuine security multiplier. As of 1 June, the DRC Ministry of Health reported 321 confirmed cases, 48 confirmed deaths, and 116 suspected cases under investigation across Ituri (299 confirmed cases from 15 health zones), North Kivu (19 confirmed), and South Kivu (3 confirmed). Uganda has confirmed 15 cases including one death, with 8 linked to Kampala. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, complicating response because existing treatments were developed for the Zaire strain. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Bunia on 31 May, underscoring the international community's alarm at the trajectory of both the epidemic and the conflict environment in which it is occurring.

Nearly 10 million people across Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, and Tanganyika are facing acute hunger between January and June 2026, according to IPC analysis. The collision of active armed conflict, mass displacement, acute food insecurity, and an active Ebola outbreak affecting health workers and mining communities represents the most dangerous compounding of emergencies in the DRC since the peak of the 2018-2020 Ebola crisis.

1. Expected Security Council Focus

The Security Council will hold a briefing and consultations on the DRC in June, with Special Representative and Head of MONUSCO James Swan expected to brief. The Council will also vote during the month on renewing the 1533 DRC sanctions regime, expiring 1 July, and the mandate of the Group of Experts, expiring 1 August.

Council discussion will address MONUSCO's role in ceasefire monitoring under Resolutions 2773 and 2808, the Doha Process for DRC-M23/AFC negotiations, the Washington Process for DRC-Rwanda de-escalation, sanctions renewal and proposed new designations, the Ebola outbreak's security implications, human rights conditions, and M23/AFC's parallel governance structures in occupied zones. The DRC's status as an elected Security Council member gives Kinshasa direct voice in discussions about its own conflict, creating unusual diplomatic dynamics around the sanctions vote and ceasefire monitoring framework.

2. MONUSCO and Ceasefire Monitoring: Conditions Not Yet Met

MONUSCO's mandate has been extended to December 2026, and the mission continues to operate with approximately 13,000 military and police personnel. However, James Swan's assessment since assuming the role in April 2026 — including field visits to Beni, Bunia, and Goma from 24 to 26 April — reflects the fundamental challenge: the conditions required for credible ceasefire monitoring are not yet established on the ground.

China and Russia have explicitly noted that the conditions outlined in the Secretary-General's letter for MONUSCO to assume a ceasefire monitoring role are not yet in place. Credible monitoring requires clear identification of parties and zones of control, genuine access guarantees for MONUSCO verification teams, defined reporting procedures for violations, protection of monitors, and political commitment from the DRC, Rwanda, and the M23/AFC structure. None of these conditions is fully operational. Ceasefire monitoring conducted without these prerequisites’ risks becoming a legitimising label for a monitoring function that cannot actually verify compliance.

3. Doha Process: Technical Progress, Political Fragility

The Montreux talks held from 13 to 18 April under Qatari facilitation produced progress toward a Protocol on Humanitarian Access and Judicial Protection and a Memorandum of Understanding with the ICGLR to operationalise the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism Plus. These are operationally important technical achievements. Humanitarian access protocols and verification mechanisms directly affect civilian harm and ceasefire compliance tracking.

However, the Doha Process's limitations are structural. It creates operational mechanisms but has not yet produced a political settlement. The M23/AFC may use partial withdrawals, humanitarian commitments, and participation in dialogue to acquire diplomatic legitimacy while preserving the territorial and administrative leverage it has built in occupied areas. The DRC government remains under domestic pressure not to appear to concede political recognition to a movement whose fundamental demand — political integration into Congolese governance — would require constitutional and institutional changes with far-reaching implications.

4. Washington Process: Stressed by Sanctions and Competing Narratives

The Joint Oversight Committee established under the DRC-Rwanda peace agreement of 27 June 2025 met on 23 April to review implementation. The US sanctions imposed on former President Joseph Kabila on 30 April for alleged support of M23 added a politically explosive dimension. The AFC leader's letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 7 May accusing Washington of bias after the Kabila sanctions and alleging failure to pressure Kinshasa demonstrates that the M23/AFC believes US mediation has tilted away from neutrality.

The Washington Process is navigating competing pressures simultaneously: Kinshasa expects stronger punitive measures against Rwanda and the M23; the M23/AFC and Rwanda-aligned narratives accuse the US of partisanship; Rwanda seeks to preserve strategic leverage while avoiding direct diplomatic isolation. The credibility of the US as a mediator capable of producing compliance from all parties is under active challenge.

5. M23/AFC: Tactical Withdrawal or Strategic Repositioning?

M23/AFC's withdrawal from Uvira and reported departure from other South Kivu positions is a development that requires careful analytical interpretation. The withdrawal follows military pressure from Congolese forces and diplomatic pressure from Washington in the context of Doha negotiations. It is tempting to read it as evidence that coordinated pressure is producing strategic results.

The more cautious reading is that M23/AFC is demonstrating tactical flexibility — withdrawing from positions of limited strategic importance or operational overextension, signalling cooperation to diplomatic audiences, while consolidating its more strategically vital holdings and deepening the parallel governance structures documented in the Group of Experts' midterm report. The report describes M23 establishing administrative, judicial, fiscal, and security structures and assuming core state functions in areas under its control. This constitutes parallel-state formation. If the group succeeds in consolidating these structures over an extended period, the challenge shifts from reversing a rebellion to dismantling an embedded alternative governance architecture — a fundamentally harder and more politically complex problem.

6. Ebola: A Security Multiplier in a Conflict Theatre

The Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak declared on 15 May represents an emergency layer that intersects with every security dimension of the eastern DRC crisis in ways that compound civilian harm and constrain response capacity.

Health teams operating in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu face the same armed group-imposed access restrictions that constrain MONUSCO, humanitarian workers, and journalists. The ADF, CODECO militias, and M23 have all imposed restrictions on civilian movement in their respective areas of control that directly obstruct contact tracing, case identification, and treatment access. Mining-related population mobility — large numbers of workers moving between artisanal mining sites, markets, and communities across provincial and national borders — creates transmission pathways that are extremely difficult to track and interrupt. Kampala's confirmation of 15 cases, including 8 from apparent local transmission, demonstrates that the outbreak's geographic reach is expanding.

The Bundibugyo strain complicates response significantly. Existing Ebola vaccines and treatments, developed for the Zaire ebolavirus, have uncertain efficacy against Bundibugyo. This reduces one of the most powerful response tools available in the 2018-2020 outbreak cycle and may extend the response timeline substantially.

The security implications are direct: health workers are being killed or threatened, response operations are being obstructed, displacement is accelerating transmission, and MONUSCO and humanitarian logistics are being redirected or strained. An outbreak that is not contained in conflict zones will expand to urban centres, as Bunia airport's temporary closure and the subsequent Kampala cases demonstrate.

7. Sanctions: Diplomacy Battlefield

The Security Council's vote on renewing the 1533 DRC sanctions regime will likely produce a procedural renewal of the regime and the Group of Experts mandate, with France, the UK, and the US having proposed adding six individuals and two entities to designation lists. The DRC, as an elected Council member, will push for stronger measures against M23 and Rwanda-linked networks. Achieving consensus beyond a baseline renewal will be difficult given the competing perspectives among Council members on how far punitive architecture should extend.

Sanctions are increasingly a battlefield of diplomatic narratives as much as an accountability mechanism. Whether they are perceived as balanced, targeted, and evidence-based — or as tools of selective pressure in a broader geopolitical competition — directly affects their legitimacy and the behaviour of the parties they are designed to influence.

8. Threat Assessment — June 2026

M23/AFC territorial control and governance structures remain a high-level strategic threat despite tactical withdrawals. Ceasefire implementation is contested and mechanisms remain underdeveloped. DRC-Rwanda tensions persist despite the Washington Process. The Ebola outbreak is a high-level compounding emergency with growing geographic scope. Humanitarian access constraints from both conflict and disease response pressures are severe. Human rights abuses by M23, armed groups, and coalition partners remain at high frequency. Sanctions diplomacy will intensify around the June renewal vote.

Strategic Conclusion

The DRC's June 2026 trajectory is defined by the dangerous overlap of conflict, diplomacy, disease, and humanitarian emergency. Tactical movements by M23/AFC do not resolve the structural challenge the group now represents as a parallel administrative authority. Ceasefire monitoring aspirations are not yet matched by the political and operational conditions monitoring requires.

The Ebola outbreak is not a parenthetical emergency. In eastern DRC's current configuration — active armed conflict, mass displacement, 10 million people facing acute hunger, armed groups obstructing aid access — it is a force multiplier that will deepen civilian suffering and constrain every element of the security, humanitarian, and health response simultaneously.

ASA Assessment: Eastern DRC faces continued localised fighting, contested ceasefire implementation, an expanding Ebola emergency, and intensifying sanctions diplomacy over the next thirty to sixty days. The highest-risk zones remain North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Goma, Bunia, and the Uvira-Bukavu corridor. The most dangerous scenario is a sustained collision between armed conflict and Ebola transmission in zones where MONUSCO, humanitarian actors, and health teams all face restricted access.