The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has extended until the end of the month the state of emergency declared in May 2021 in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, in the northeast of the country, particularly in the latter where bloody clashes between the Army and the M23 rebel movement have led to the displacement of half a million people.
Following a meeting of the security and interior ministers, the government announced a new 15-day extension that will take effect on February 16, said the government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya.
«The maintenance of this exceptional measure supports the government will allow the Armed Forces to consolidate the achievements of previous operations and to continue actions with a view to restoring peace and security in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo,» according to the communiqué reported by Actualité.
The fighting against the M23 has led for example, in the last hours and according to Radio Okapi, to the emergency evacuation of a camp for demobilized guerrillas in Mubambiro, only 20 kilometers from the capital of North Kivu, Goma.
In Ituri operate the fearsome militias of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), loyal to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA) and accused by the United Nations of the killings of more than 1,200 civilians in 2021.
The East African Community of States mediator for the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uhuru Kenyatta, has called for the full deployment of international forces in the region to try to contain hostilities between the army and rebels amid difficult diplomatic efforts to end the crisis.
The mediator and former Kenyan president thus asks the so-called East African Community Regional Force (EARCF) to order a deployment «without delay» throughout «the entire eastern DRC» to «interpose itself between the warring sides» and ensure security in the areas where the fighting has ended, according to a statement published by the portal ‘The East African’.
Kenyatta makes this statement after the celebration last weekend of an emergency summit of East African heads of state in Burundi – which the mediator could not attend due to logistical problems – and which, in principle, concluded with a commitment to strengthen the peace plan for the Congolese region and to reach a diplomatic solution between the DRC and Rwanda, accused by its Congolese neighbor of aiding the rebel group, something that the Rwandan government has categorically denied.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
