Belgium leads calls for suspension of agreement after Rwanda-backed rebels captured city of Goma. The EU is under mounting pressure to suspend a controversial minerals deal with Rwanda that has been blamed for fuelling the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Calls to freeze the agreement have grown after fighters from the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group captured the city of Goma in the eastern DRC, escalating a decades-old conflict and raising fears of a regional war.

With the people of Goma, in North Kivu province, going hungry and relief efforts paralysed, Belgium, the former colonial power in DRC and Rwanda, is leading calls for the EU to suspend the 2024 agreement intended to boost the flow of critical raw materials for Europe’s microchips and electric car batteries.

“The international community must consider how to respond, because declarations have not been enough,” said Belgium’s foreign minister, Bernard Quintin...“We have the levers and we have to decide how to use them.”

Diplomatic sources said Belgium had pressed for a suspension of the EU-Rwanda minerals agreement at several levels, including at a meeting of EU foreign ministers last Monday.

Brussels and Kigali signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on sustainable raw materials value chains in February 2024. The EU gets access to raw material sources that include tin, tungsten, gold, niobium and potential lithium and rare earth elements. Rwanda is the world’s largest extractor of tantalum, which is used in chemical equipment. The EU is giving Kigali €900m (£750m) to develop its infrastructure in raw materials extraction, health and climate resilience.

The money comes from the global gateway, the EU’s €300bn answer to China’s belt and road initiative, which funds infrastructure projects around the world.

After the deal was signed, the infuriated Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, described it as “a provocation in very bad taste”...

The European Commission has so far brushed aside criticism of the 2024 deal with Rwanda: a spokesperson last Tuesday said critical materials were “essential to achieve the green and digital transition both within the EU and across the world”.

They said: “One of the main objectives of the partnership MoU with Rwanda is precisely to support the sustainable and responsible sourcing, production and processing of raw materials, and we will increase now in our work this traceability and transparency.”