The leaders of the East African states are holding a crucial meeting this Saturday in Burundi on the future of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, plagued by the violence of armed groups, especially the March 23 Movement, in a meeting where all eyes will be on the Congolese president, Felix Tshisekedi, and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, protagonists of a recent diplomatic conflict precisely because of the operations of this rebel organization.
Tshisekedi and Kagame are already in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, to carry out, according to the declaration of the meeting, reported by the Congolese portal Actualité, a new «assessment of the security situation in eastern DRC» on a conflict which, since its resumption in November 2021, has left more than 520,000 displaced persons, according to UN estimates.
The African leaders will also discuss the roadmap agreed in Luanda (Angola’s capital) between DRC and Rwanda to solve the diplomatic crisis opened after the Congolese president accused his counterpart of backing the major offensive led by the M23 in the North Kivu region; accusations that Rwanda has categorically denied.
Such is the importance of the meeting that the Belgian Foreign Minister, Haddad Lahbib, told the Congolese President on Friday of the need to reach a successful conclusion to the meeting in order to prevent the conflict with the M23 from extending its international dimension.
After the initial good prospects, the Congolese government has ended up being accused of not complying with certain terms of the Luanda agreement, such as the disarmament of the militias of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) operating on its territory against the Rwandan government.
After the M23 announced its intention to withdraw from the areas it had conquered in the region, the armed group and the Congolese Army resumed fighting on January 25, especially in the localities of Bwiza and Kitchanga. Two days later, the rebels captured the latter locality and continued to advance, after generating a new population exodus estimated at 122,000 people who fled their homes in a single day, before the conquest of the armed group, according to Save the Children.
«It must be said clearly: tensions are extreme,» the foreign minister of the former European colonial power said of the DRC. «The most important thing now is to avoid an escalation of the conflict that would lead to open war. I believe that the east of the country has suffered enough and it is time to call for dialogue on all sides,» she added.
The meeting, which began at 11:00 a.m., will be marked by speeches by Tshisekedi and Kagame, as well as by the Kenyan President William Ruto, the Tanzanian Samia Suluhu and the Ugandan Yoweri Museveni.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)