Rwanda is illegally occupying the Democratic Republic of Congo and attempting to orchestrate regime change, the country's foreign minister has told the BBC. Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said this followed decades of impunity and failure to hold Rwandan President Paul Kagame accountable for violating international law.

The United Nations expressed deep concern at reports of M23 rebels and Rwandan troops advancing south towards the Congolese city of Bukavu on Thursday, as the militants sought also to assert their control over east Congo's largest city Goma.

What has been a slow-burn crisis in eastern DRC has again exploded into the open. Kagame appears to have calculated that a change of US administration is a good time to strike. A peace process mediated by Angola and sponsored by the US collapsed in the dying days of Joe Biden’s administration.