Along the strip of asphalt stretching 150 kilometers west toward the Congolese capital, the red berets of Colonel Matambwe march through the small town of Bankana with local youth. The health march was organized "against tribalism and to encourage dialogue between civilians and the military," explained the officer from the Republican Guard – the elite unit in charge of protecting President Félix Tshisekedi.

Since March, fighting has lessened in this region, torn apart by three years of violence between the Teke and Yaka communities. The Congolese armed forces, which were deployed in 2022 to contain the attacks, have been ordered to stop pursuing the Mobondo, grassroots militias mainly recruiting from the Yaka community, who are responsible for attacks on civilians. Yet this conflict, fueled by customary disputes and responsible for several hundred deaths, is far from being resolved.

The Yaka community condemned what it saw as an unfair distribution of land on the Batéké Plateau, a vast agricultural area bordered to the north by the Congo River, at the crossroads of the Mai-Ndombe, Kwilu, and Kwango provinces and on the outskirts of Kinshasa. "What triggered the conflict was the increase in land taxes imposed by Teke customary chiefs, who control the land," explained John Elanga, emergency coordinator at Caritas International. Members of the Yaka community organized themselves into a militia, the Mobondo. Armed with machetes and rifles, they attacked symbols of authority and killed hundreds of Teke. The conflict, fueled by cycles of intercommunal revenge, first broke out in June 2022 near the town of Kwamouth on the banks of the Congo River, and then spread toward the area near Kinshasa.

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