A special summit of the 16-bloc Southern African Development Community, which includes South Africa, Angola and Tanzania, backed the deployment “to restore peace and security in eastern DRC”, SADC said in a statement from the Namibian capital Windhoek. Armed groups have plagued much of mineral-rich eastern DRC for three decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s. The East African Community (EAC) force draws on troops from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. The DRC accuses its smaller central African neighbour Rwanda of backing the M23, something Rwanda has repeatedly denied. Guterres addressed a meeting in Burundi of African nations that signed the 2013 accord to promote stability and security in DRC.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 09, 2023 08:13 UTC