1. Introduction After several days of fighting, the M23 rebellion(March 23 Movement) and their Rwandan allies, took control of the city of Goma on 26 January 2025. Before its fall, the city of nearly one million was protected by a grand defensive system consisting of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo(FARDC), the Southern African Development Community in the Democratic Republic of Congo(SAMIRDC), the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), contingents from the Burundian army, private military companies and a coalition of local militias united under the banner of Wazalendo(“Patriots»in Swahili). With its overwhelming concentration of men and material, the government had good reason to bet that«Goma would not fall». Yet, Goma did fall. According to the United Nations, the battle for the city caused an estimated 3,000 deaths, many of which were civilians. The camps for displaced persons, housing around 700,000 people, were dismantled by M23. Their occupants were forced back to their villages and left to fend for themselves without adequate humanitarian assistance. A crisis within a crisis. The capture of Goma brought about a temporary collapse of the Congolese Army. The M23 continued to push their advantage, capturing the city of Bukavu, with its more than 1.5 million inhabitants. With the fall of Bukavu, the M23 gained complete control of Lake Kivu, a large swath of North and South Kivu, and the group makes no secret of its ambition to expand further into other provinces. No armed group has accomplished such territorial gains since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003. operations(PSOs) – in their mandate to protect civilians and combat armed groups. This report aims to understand Congolese perceptions of the mandate of peace support operations in their country. It will examine their views on the effectiveness of peace missions, the reasons for their successes and failures, and the conditions for responsible withdrawal. Although the UN Security Council has strengthened MONUSCO’s mandate to enable it to respond effectively to security challenges and support the Congolese government, the mission faces pressure from civil society and political forces who demand its departure. Since President Félix Tshisekedi came to power, the Congolese government repeatedly called for military support from both regional organisations and bilateral partners to resolve the crisis. So far, these efforts have proved unsuccessful. Faced with protests by the population demanding the departure of MONUSCO, and later the Eastern Africa (EAC-RF), it is important to understand how the Congolese perceive PSO’s inability to provide lasting peace. Although this report focuses on MONUSCO, this paper will also address the perception in North Kivu of recent regional initiatives by the EAC(EAC-RF) and SADC(SAMIRDC). At the core of this report is over 50 semi-structured interviews with key informants that relayed their experiences with MONUSCO, the EAC-RF and SAMIRDC. Field research was conducted in Goma, Bukavu, Beni, Butembo, and Bunia between September and the end of December 2024. Key informants included local and provincial civil society leaders, journalists, former mayors, and provincial deputies. The defeat of the Congolese army was a defeat of the international forces that supported it. Over the last several years, North Kivu had become a hub for foreign military missions. The UN mission MONUSCO has a large base there and in November 2023, it launched Operation Springbok with the aim of countering the advance of M23 and protecting the towns of Goma and Sake. SAMIRDC, deployed since December 2023 with more than 4,000 troops, had the same objective: to protect the city of Goma. The protracted crisis in eastern DRC reignited the debate on the effectiveness of peacekeeping missions – or, to use the African Union’s terminology, peace support We also spoke with current and former MONUSCO personnel in North Kivu, South Kivu and Kinshasa. Most informants were urban based, although some relayed rural experiences. This report also drew from internal MONUSCO reports, various secondary sources compiled by NGOs, as well as official documents issued by all actors. This report is divided into two parts. The first part reviews the history of peacekeeping missions in the DRC. This section addresses the various transformations undergone by the UN force over the past 25 years, as well as the recent unsuccessful mission by the EAC and SADC. It lays out the tensions that pit peacekeeping missions against 6 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.