Congo Military Court Sentences 66 Soldiers to Death for Cowardice After Walikale Trial

A military court in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced 66 soldiers to death for cowardice, mutiny and disobeying orders, the latest in a string of mass trials of troops accused of abandoning positions in the war against the M23 rebels. The Goma Garrison Military Court, sitting in Walikale territory in North Kivu, delivered the verdict late on Friday, Nov. 6, according to the state news agency ACP !Unverified claim, ACP (Congolese state news agency).

The soldiers belonged to the army’s 3415th Regiment and were arrested on Oct. 20 in Ngora over events in Ntoto, in the Wanianga sector, ACP reported. A sergeant received 10 years in prison and four defendants, including a captain, were acquitted. The trial lasted 12 days.

According to RFI, the Oct. 20 incident began when military police tried to block soldiers who were coming back from the front line. An exchange of fire followed in which a soldier and a civilian were killed.

A pattern of mass trials

The Walikale case is not isolated. RFI, which compiled verdicts from military courts across the east, counted 237 soldiers convicted in 2026 so far, 114 of them sentenced to death. Besides Walikale’s 66, the death sentences came from trials in Uvira, where 45 soldiers were condemned, and Beni, where three were. A separate trial in Kisangani ended with 58 soldiers receiving three-year terms.

In 2025, according to the same tally, military courts in places including Bukavu and Musienene handed down 267 death sentences, and two generals were sentenced to one year each. Taken together, RFI counts at least 507 convictions and 381 death sentences of soldiers since the start of 2025. In October, Anadolu Agency !Unverified claim, Anadolu Agency (Turkish state-run news agency) reported that 27 soldiers had been sentenced for withdrawing in the face of the AFC/M23 rebel alliance.

By The Boston Report’s calculation from the RFI figures, the Walikale verdict alone accounts for 58% of the death sentences handed to soldiers this year.

Will anyone be executed?

Congo lifted its moratorium on executions in March 2024, citing treason and desertion in the east. Rights groups criticized the decision, and Amnesty International recorded no executions in the country in 2025. In practice, death sentences in Congo have often been commuted or left unenforced, but the lifting of the moratorium means the legal obstacle to carrying them out has been removed.

Defendants can appeal the verdict, though the ACP report did not say whether any had filed appeals. The court’s decision was announced in Walikale, a territory that has seen fighting as M23 advanced west from its strongholds in North Kivu.

Why Kinshasa is leaning on military courts

The army, known by its French initials FARDC, has suffered repeated battlefield losses since the M23 offensive that took Goma and Bukavu. Officials have blamed collapses on troops fleeing positions and on indiscipline, and the military justice system has become one of the government’s main public responses. Critics, including human rights lawyers, argue that mass trials of rank-and-file soldiers do little to address poor pay, supply problems and command failures that drive desertion.

The east is also coping with other crises. Armed groups continue to attack civilians, as in a recent attack near Beni that killed 24 people, and an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus is spreading in Ituri and North Kivu, which we follow in our Ebola outbreak tracker. For more conflict coverage, see our war news section.

What comes next

The Walikale verdict raises the number of soldiers on death row at a time when the army needs more troops, not fewer. Whether the sentences stand on appeal, and whether the government acts on any of them, will indicate how far Kinshasa is willing to go to stop units from abandoning the front.

Sources

• ACP: North Kivu, 66 Congolese army soldiers sentenced to death for cowardice
• RFI: RDC, plus de 500 militaires congolais condamnés depuis 2025, dont 381 à mort
• Anadolu Agency: DR Congo court sentences 66 soldiers to death