Tour du Rwanda: 'Dire humanitarian situation' with Goma conflict less than 15km from race route
Safety concerns for Tour du Rwanda as M23 rebel group fight for control of Goma on the Rwanda-DR Congo border
There are safety concerns for the upcoming Tour du Rwanda after the allegedly Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group seized control of the city of Goma, a city of two-million people in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the Rwandan border. A week of fighting with the Congolese military has resulted in what the UN have called a ‘dire humanitarian situation’.
In the last 24 hours, with the M23 rebels claiming full control of Goma, the President of the DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, has vowed to respond, leading many to pose the possibility of a wider East African war.
Rwanda’s biggest cycling race, the Tour du Rwanda, is due to finish in Rubavu on stage 4 in four weeks’ time, and start from the same town a day later. Rubavu sits just 14km away from Goma over the Rwandan border.
Although it seems unlikely at this stage that fighting will move into Rwanda, the declaration from the Tshisekedi and the DRC’s refusal to participate in peace talks makes this situation unpredictable. Tshisekedi - along with the UN and several western nations - has directly accused Kagame and Rwanda of backing the M23 group and once even compared the Rwandan President to ‘Hitler’. Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies links to M23.
Read more: *Will Kigali 2025 become the World Championships with an asterisk?*
The Tour du Rwanda is set to take place between the 23rd of February and the 2nd of March and will include a total of 16 teams, including ProTeams Israel-Premier Tech and TotalEnergies as well as several WorldTour development squads, other Continental teams and several national teams. The race is officially organised by the Rwandan Cycling Federation (FERWACY), with support from Belgian events company Golazo.
Global Peloton has reached out to teams, race organisers and the UCI to understand whether concerns have been raised for the safety of the riders and all those involved with the race, and whether any measures are to be taken.
One team said that they hadn’t yet heard anything from the race organisation, but a team representative said “I think we can be confident in the organiser to make the right decisions about this,” and pointed to the experience of race organisers involved.
A representative from an African-based team said: “I’d be surprised if they change it but you never know.”
At the time of writing, neither race organisers nor the UCI have responded to requests for comment.
A contact in Rwanda told Global Peloton: “If in two weeks before the race there are some detonations in Goma I think [the European teams] won’t come. Rwanda will not reschedule the stage unless there are serious concerns…What scares me is a regional [conflict] in case DRC may choose to declare a war on Rwanda.”
Much will depend on what happens over the coming weeks and whether Rwanda’s military gets directly involved in any conflict itself. For now, it is too soon to tell what impact the fighting will have on the race.
Whatever unfolds will also have an impact on the upcoming World Championships set to take place in Kigali in September. The Rwandan capital city of Kigali sits around 150 kilometres to the east of Rubavu, so as things stand there is little concern that the racing course itself would be impacted. However, should the fighting continue to escalate, military and other federal resources earmarked for the Championships will be drained.
The World Championships are also being co-organised by ASO and Golazo. A spokesperson for Golazo, Gert Van Goolen, told Sporza, "The World Championship is still an organisation of the UCI. They are closely monitoring the situation in Rwanda and we are listening to them."
"It is possible that the war in Eastern Congo will have an influence, Van Goolen continued. “The conflict has been going on in that region for a long time, it has only escalated very recently. We still have to see how it will develop."
A problem for the UCI, World Championships organisers ASO and Golazo and the Rwandan government will be the message that this current conflict communicates to the cycling world about participating in the event. Already nations like Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland have announced reduced delegations to the 2025 World Championships. With a conflict ongoing, surely many more will follow suit, or pull out of the Championships altogether on safety grounds.
This is a developing story, so make sure you are subscribed to Global Peloton to get the latest updates over the coming weeks.
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The whole Rwandan WC is dead wrong.