KIGAIL: Rwandan truckers and exporters say they are paying a steep price for the conflict in the eastern region of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, having to deal with angry locals and fearful customers.

Olivier Munyemana, a Rwandan lorry driver, knows the route from the Indian Ocean port of Dar Es Salaam to the DRC by heart, having driven it for eight years.

But as fighting has escalated in DRC in recent months, with the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group seizing large areas of the east, including the border towns of Goma and Bukavu, he is too afraid to cross.

He says drivers face attacks from locals angry at Rwanda’s involvement in the conflict.

“I can’t risk my life or lose my truck,” he said. 

“We have had cases of trucks being burned and drivers attacked.”

Rwanda says the M23’s takeover in eastern DRC is necessary to eradicate a Rwandan militia formed initially by those who committed the 1994 genocide and which threatens to attack its borders.

The DRC claims that Rwanda seeks regime change and control of the east’s vast mineral wealth.

Whatever the motives, it has been bad for business.

According to the National Institute of Statistics, DRC is Rwanda’s second-biggest trading partner, buying $156 million worth of goods in the first nine months of 2024.

Anjia Prefabricated, a $100 million Chinese-owned cement factory in Rwanda’s Muhanga district, gets all its clinker — a key ingredient for cement — from DRC by truck and boat.

“This stopped shortly before the war reached Bukavu. All our trucks ... are now parked,” said Israel Byiringiro, its head of procurement.

Although the Rwanda-allied M23 now has considerable control along the border region, their vehicles must still pass through hostile and precarious areas.

“We’ve been using our clinker stocks, but they are drying up fast,” said Byiringiro, adding that they now had to use a much costlier route through Tanzania that adds some 800 km.

Firms are also losing customers after construction companies in Bukavu and Goma were targeted in the unrest or fled the violence, said Davis Twahirwa, head of sales for Cimerwa, another Rwandan cement company, which typically sold a third of its output into DRC.

“Some of my customers have lost millions,” he said. 

“One lost two brand-new trucks in Gomab ... stolen by government forces apparently, and also his depots were looted.”

He said local banks were cut off by the Congolese government, making it hard to access dollars, and many traders fear the government will punish companies who resume business under the M23.

However, he added that relative calm was returning now that the group had consolidated control over the region.

“Normalcy is returning, and we have resumed selling in both markets, primarily in Goma. Bukavu is also slowly returning, and we hope to ramp up by mid-March fully,” said Twahirwa.

As demand increased in the hinterland countries of East Africa in the last decade, many Rwandans invested in lorries to ply routes from the coastal ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

They now have large loans to repay, and the conflict’s impact is taking a toll.

“When it is a war zone, no one wants to enter there,” said Abdul Ndarubogoye, president of the Rwanda Transporters Association.

“This has cost transporters and traders a lot of money; some truckers were trapped there in the war zone, which caused major delays,” he added.

He said Rwandan-registered lorries account for 40 percent of those entering eastern DRC, but they don’t want to risk being attacked by anti-Rwandan groups.