Romania’s defence ministry has discovered it has hundreds of soldiers on parental leave and army reservists currently working as highly paid mercenaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The central African nation has paid up to $5,000 a month to the mercenaries to help it fight back Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the country’s largely ethnically Tutsi East. Ordinary DRC soldiers receive $100 a month, or go unpaid.
Romania’s Ministry of Defence in an April 2 statement said: “Four hundred and sixty six reservist soldiers from the Ministry of National Defence signed contracts for various periods with security companies operating in the DR Congo”.
The ministry also said “seven active military personnel” took paternity leave and then “unjustifiably carried out activities in the DR Congo, in different periods, between 2023 and early 2025, as temporary employees in security companies”.
The seven included “two non-commissioned officers and five professional soldiers”, it added.
Dmytro Tupchiienko, a Romanian-British lawyer and security professional, told Brussels Signal on April 4: “Not surprisingly, the Armed Forces of Romania suffer as much from underfunding as any other government agency in Romania.
“Despite being a member of NATO and the EU, Romania is still a ‘second tier’ developed country, with recent corruption scandals and political influence over elections,” where the roads were “still at the same level as in the 1980s”, he added.
On January 28, 300 Romanian mercenaries fighting for the DRC Government of President Félix Tshisekedi surrendered to the M23 rebels after they overran the border city of Goma following a two-year siege.
Romania’s defence minister Angel Tîlvăr initiated a review of the entire Romanian army at the end of February to look for domestic soldiers who had taken leave and then gone to work for private security contractors in the DRC.
The defence ministry said Tîlvăr “ordered the clarification of the circumstances and responsibilities that allowed these situations, as well as the taking of preventive measures with the utmost urgency in the future”.
For many, the fact Romania’s soldiers were fighting an African country’s wars raised questions about the professionalism of Romania’s army and potential official corruption by any who had turned a blind eye to the situation.
Tupchiienko said Romania’s “membership in NATO and the EU was granted prematurely, well in advance, politically motivated rather on merit, and some say due to an intervention of the late King Mihai”, who died in 2017.
Regarding the Romanian army situation, he said there was “clearly a glitch in the system”.
There is a long history of European mercenaries helping leaders in the African country to fight against local rebels.
Then-DRC president Mobutu Sese Seko hired mercenaries from the former Yugoslavia as his government collapsed in the years leading up to 1997.
French mercenaries also helped the DRC army of the late commander-in-chief Louis Bobozo fight rebels after the country’s 1960 independence from Belgium.
What had been a relatively positive history was tarnished in 2025 after the televised surrender of Romanian mercenaries – called “the Romeos” and recruited mainly by Horațiu Potra, a Romanian and former French legionnaire. At their height, they numbered 1,000.
Approximately 30 per cent of the Romeos had served in the French Foreign Legion. Some were Romanian soldiers on parental leave or Romanian reservists. Others, though, were supermarket security guards and untrained lorry drivers, lured by the money and recruited due to a lack of more qualified personnel.
With DRC positions around Goma crumbling on January 27-28, the Romeos abandoned their equipment and positions to dash to a UN base in the city’s centre. M23 fighters arriving at the base gave the Romeos two hours to surrender.
After doing so, the mercenaries were publicly berated on television by the M23 leaders, then driven to the Rwandan border and flown home.
#DRCongo 🇨🇩: a total of 288 Romanian mercenaries surrendered to #Rwanda following their crossing of the border from #Goma, which is now under #M23 control.
It is estimated that around 800 Romanians are active within the DRC, hired by the government to maintain security. pic.twitter.com/oag0ZPINca
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) January 29, 2025
