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Kinetic coverage fell steadily across the first half of 2026, from heavy fighting and drone strikes early in the year to an M23 withdrawal and government forces retaking ground by May.
Each card below is one coalition with its own frame on the same contested phenomenon.
Weekly attributed-headline count per narrative. Visual asymmetry is signal: some coalitions dominate the vocabulary, others stay sporadic.
Loaded vocabulary per coalition and recent headlines under each frame.
Per-week distribution of events on this friction node. Click a bar to see that week's top events.
Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.
Countries directly involved in these tensions, or whose own outlets cover them.
M23 is not a self-sustaining local rebellion but a force armed and directed from across the border, able to seize cities, strike airports with drones and hold territory because a neighbouring state supplies it. The sanctions imposed on Rwandan commanders and on Joseph Kabila are the belated recognition of a cross-border war being fought through a proxy.
Whoever is judged responsible, the measurable result of this war is borne by civilians: thousands detained and abused in captured towns, mass displacement across the Burundian and Rwandan borders, aid workers killed by drones, and rights investigators documenting killings and rapes in Uvira. Territorial gains and losses change faster than the humanitarian damage they leave.
