Uganda has stopped supporting the M23 rebel group inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Rwanda is supplying “continuous but limited” aid, a United Nations monitoring group says in a new report.

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“Ugandan officials have thwarted several M23 attempts to recruit on their territory,” the UN panel finds. It points to the reported arrest in May of seven individuals said to have been carrying out recruitment inside Uganda on behalf of the DRC rebels.

The victorious faction in an internal struggle in M23 is meanwhile enlisting new recruits in Rwanda, “thanks to assistance from some sympathetic Rwandan officials,” the report says.

Sultani Makenga, leader of the side that prevailed in the internal dispute, has enlisted demobilised Rwandan soldiers in M23 as part of his recruitment efforts, the UN group adds.

The losing side in M23’s internal conflict, which had been led by Bosco Ntaganda, has seen its support network dismantled inside Rwanda.

Ntaganda himself, along with 788 loyalist troops, had fled to Rwanda earlier this year but has received no support from authorities, according to the report. Ntaganda later “surrendered” to the International Criminal Court through the American embassy in Kigali.

The Makenga-led M23 is itself “weakened” and unable to control the entire territory where it operates in the DRC, the UN says. The rebel group “suffers from poor morale and scores of desertions.”

M23’s failed attempt at the end of May to recover a key position near Goma held by DRC government troops “illustrates the movement’s current inability to carry out large-scale co-ordinated military operations,” the report states.

The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu group opposed to the Tutsi-led Rwandan government, has also “continued to weaken” during the first half of this year, the panel observes.

It estimates FDLR strength at about 1,500 soldiers, with depletion in the group’s ranks attributed to “a high surrender rate.”

The panel says the FDLR “suffers from internal divisions and a weak hierarchy that lacks the capability to command and control the organisation’s entire operations.”

Leadership of the Hutu rebel force is divided between “hardliners who want to continue the armed struggle and moderates belonging to young generations who favour demobilisation and reintegration,” the UN reports.

The FDLR was assisted in recent months, however, by units of the Congolese armed forces, the report says. The two entities joined forces on a local level in parts of the eastern DRC where the Tutsi-led M23 had been gaining strength, the UN notes.

In contrast to the FDLR, a Ugandan Islamist rebel force also based in the DRC is described by the UN monitors as “a tightly controlled organisation, with close to no combatants who surrender.”

This group, known as the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF), is estimated to include up to 1200 combatants, although the UN says it is investigating claims that the ADF’s ranks are larger than that.

Its arsenal consists of mortars, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the report notes. Foreign trainers are also instructing ADF members in the assembly of improvised explosive devices, the report adds.

Minerals extracted from zones of conflict inside the DRC are being smuggled into neighbouring countries for export, the UN finds. The report quotes a person involved in this illicit trade as suggesting, “As long as nobody is buying from the DRC, there will be smuggling to neighbouring countries.”

Many Western companies have “simply ceased purchasing minerals from the Great Lakes region” due to the threat of sanctions posed in a law passed by the US Congress in 2010, the report says.

The effort to circumvent the US ban on trade in resources controlled by rebel groups inside the DRC “not only undermines due-diligence efforts aimed at stamping out conflict minerals in DRC, but also jeopardises traceability schemes within DRC and neighbouring countries, as it negatively affects the perception of exports from the whole region,” the report states.