NEWS– Angolan President Joao Lourenco has hosted a mini-summit in Addis Ababa in a bid to revive peace efforts for the violence-wracked eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The meeting, on the eve of a two-day AU summit in the Ethiopian capital, follows an escalation of fighting in the region in recent days.
Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to quell the conflict between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese army in the mineral-rich east of the vast central African nation.
Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi was among those taking part in Friday’s closed-door meeting and the mini-summit discussed the return to a constructive and reconciliatory dialogue between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
They also discussed the immediate cessation of hostilities, the immediate withdrawal of the M23 from occupied areas and the launch of a process to contain this movement.
“This mini-summit discussed, among other things, the return to a constructive and reconciliatory dialogue between the DRC and Rwanda, the immediate cessation of hostilities, the immediate withdrawal of the M23 from occupied areas and the launch of a process to contain this movement,” the presidency said.
Kinshasa, along with the United Nations and Western countries, accuses Democratic Republic of Congo much smaller neighbor Rwanda of backing the rebels, a charge the Kigali government denies.
In his address to the meeting Tshisekedi charged that Kigali was perpetuating insecurity in the region and looting the region’s mineral riches, the presidency said, adding that the talks would continue on Saturday.
It said President Lourenco was expected to be joined by the leaders of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan and Tanzania, but it was not confirmed which leaders attended the talks, which began shortly after Tshisekedi’s arrival in Addis Ababa.
Militias have plagued the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars fought in the 1990s and the early 2000s, with mostly the Tutsi M23 Group which has seized vast swathes of North Kivu Province since emerging from dormancy in late 2021.
The U.N. Security Council said it was concerned by the escalating violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Region and the latest flare-up has forced thousands of civilians to flee the town of Sake on the way to Goma, the capital of North Kivu.
According to a U.N, peace keeping forces which has been in the Democratic Republic of Congo for nearly 25 years have been accused of failing to protect civilians from armed groups but the UN disclosed that the Rwandan Army is using sophisticated weapons such as surface-to-air missiles to support M23 rebel group.
