KALEMIE, DR Congo: US businessman Erik Prince and his mercenaries have emerged as key players in the war-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), fighting for its government as Washington vies for strategic minerals in the country, researchers and local sources told AFP.
Numerous foreign paramilitaries have been seen in the vast, unstable central African country, where locals say they are backing the ill-armed government forces against the M23.
Officials are not sure in all cases who is employing the foreign personnel. But sources frequently mention the name of Prince, a businessman close to US President Donald Trump.
Prince is founder of Blackwater — a military security contractor whose members were convicted of atrocities in Iraq.
Prince “has established himself as a key player in the DRC’s political-security economy,” according to an investigation published this month by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
It described his operations as “a ‘business-as-security’ model unprecedented in the region.”
- Fighting and minerals -
After the anti-government M23 group took the key eastern regional capital Goma in January 2025, its forces were filmed escorting hundreds of Romanian paramilitaries out of the country via Rwanda.
A US-mediated agreement between the DRC and Rwanda that year was meant to end the fighting in return for US access to minerals.
The front lines stabilized, but the conflict has not been resolved, with drones playing a major role.
After paramilitaries failed to help government forces crumbling in the face of the M23’s Rwandan reinforcements, the DRC government abruptly terminated a contract with Agemira, a French-led private military firm, according to a report by UN experts.
The UN experts said former Agemira personnel were redeployed to Kisangani, an eastern provincial capital a few hundred miles from the front line.
Their report also signalled the presence of South American military contractors but could not identify who employed them.
These can be seen on the tarmac at Kisangani’s airport, dressed in green fatigues and carrying out maintenance on military aircraft.
A source close to the matter told AFP that accommodation for several thousand such personnel had been built in Kisangani.
UN experts said in their report that Kisangani was serving as a new hub for the deployment of private military companies.
They are tasked in particular with operating Chinese-made CH-4 drones that regularly strike M23 positions.
The UN experts did not identify the companies — but sources have linked the hub to Prince.
- Drone surveillance -
In 2024, Prince signed a contract with the Congolese finance ministry worth between $100 million and $200 million, GI-TOC said.
That deal was officially “aimed at assisting the authorities in securing mining sites, improving tax collection mechanisms and curbing cross-border smuggling of minerals,” the group’s report added.
But it also linked Prince to operations in January 2026 to retake Uvira, a major South Kivu city briefly captured by the M23.
“Prince’s group is said to have supported Congolese special operations forces and army units with drone surveillance and other technical assistance.”
The New York Times reported on two paramilitaries working for the millionaire, a New Zealander and a former member of the US special forces.
It said the New Zealander was killed and the US ex-serviceman wounded in an ambush in the area in September.
The two companies representing Prince’s interests in the DRC, Vectus Global and Quantum Global Consulting, maintain a presence in the national capital Kinshasa, but their executives keep a low profile.
Contacted by AFP through his various online platforms, Prince did not respond. An AFP request for comment from Vectus Global also went unanswered.
- Ex-special forces -
Beside a hotel pool, heavily built Western men stick out in the remote southeastern DRC town of Kalemie.
Their presence is explained in part by its strategic location, halfway between territory held by M23 forces and the region’s mining belt, according to a Congolese army official, who asked not to be named.
According to security sources and some of the men by the hotel pool, paramilitaries in the country include Ukrainians, Israelis, South Africans and Algerians.
Men at the pool presented themselves to AFP as pilots or trainers, in some cases former special forces personnel.
Some said they previously fought as mercenaries in other African conflicts and openly expressed views of the American alt-right.
The Congolese army official insisted that the paramilitaries were not combatants but provided no further details.
He said that even Congolese military personnel struggled to navigate the opaque network of private military companies operating in the DRC.
In Kalemie, residents and militia members said they were certain of one thing: “Americans” are fighting alongside the DRC.