Africa rallies to resolve DR Congo conflict
More African countries are rallying around to resolve the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with eastern and southern African countries seeking to broker peace. They have now expanded their team of presidential mediators following a virtual summit on Monday as they try to bring more pressure to stop the fight. The East African […]
More African countries are rallying around to resolve the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with eastern and southern African countries seeking to broker peace.
They have now expanded their team of presidential mediators following a virtual summit on Monday as they try to bring more pressure to stop the fight.
The East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) – together comprising 24 countries – came together in early February for a joint peace push after a Rwanda-backed armed group, the M23, seized large swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC, triggering fears of a regional war.
After another virtual summit of the regional leaders on Monday, a new team of “facilitators” was announced to lead negotiations.
Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and ex-Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo remain on the team, while former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde replaces another ex-Ethiopian leader Hailemariam Desalegn.
Former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and ex-Central African Republic President Catherine Samba-Panza were added, enlarging the group to five from three to improve “gender, regional and language inclusivity”, according to a communique issued after the summit.
It said the EAC, SADC and African Union would hold another meeting within seven days.
Previous peace talks between Rwanda and the DRC had been hosted by Angola, but it announced Monday that it was relinquishing its role as a mediator.
Long-awaited peace talks scheduled to be held in Angola’s capital on March 18 were cancelled at the eleventh hour when the M23 pulled out in protest at EU sanctions on some of its top brass.
The same day, the government of Qatar unexpectedly announced it had hosted Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi for talks.
The two heads of state, who have long been at odds, “reaffirmed the commitment of all parties to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire,” Qatar said in a statement released after the secret meeting.
Despite the recent attempts to broker a ceasefire, the M23 last week took control of the mining hub of Walikale, the farthest west the group has advanced into the interior of the DRC since 2012.
Complex conflict
The conflict in the DRC is one of the world’s most complex and long-standing crises. Rooted in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the conflict began when millions of refugees, including Hutu extremists, fled into eastern Congo.
This influx destabilised the region, leading to the First Congo War (1996–1997) and the overthrow of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The Second Congo War (1998–2003) followed, involving multiple African nations and resulting in millions of deaths.
The eastern DRC remains a hotspot of violence, with over 100 armed groups vying for control of its rich mineral resources, including gold and coltan.
The M23 rebel group, backed by Rwanda, has been a significant player, recently capturing the city of Goma. This has led to mass displacement and a humanitarian crisis, with millions in need of aid.
The conflict is fuelled by ethnic tensions, political instability, and competition for resources. Efforts to establish peace, including international interventions, have largely failed. The DRC’s citizens continue to face widespread atrocities, including massacres and sexual violence, making it one of the deadliest and most urgent humanitarian crises globally.
Fresh violence in Ituri province
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Tuesday said civilians were suffering “horrific” wounds in a new surge in violence in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s turbulent Ituri province.
Gold-rich Ituri has long been hit by conflict between ethnic militia as well as attacks by the Islamic State-linked group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
It lies in Kivu provinces, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized large tracts of territory in recent months, but the fighting is not linked to the violence in Ituri.
The medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, said it had seen “a renewed spike in atrocities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province, where its medical teams are providing care for civilians with horrific injuries.”
Citing UN figures, it said violence had displaced around 100,000 people since the beginning of the year, with attacks killing more than 200 people in January and February alone.
More than half of the victims of violence that MSF treated at its clinic in the provincial capital, Bunia, up until mid-March were women and children, it said.
“In February, MSF’s medical teams treated children as young as four and pregnant women for machete and gunshot wounds following militia attacks” in which sometimes other family members had been killed.
Healthcare facilities are also prey to attacks, MSF warned, saying threats by armed groups had forced a hospital to suspend its activities and evacuate patients this month. Other health centres have been destroyed.
The crisis in Ituri “is characterised by repeated displacement, in which violence forces civilians to pick up and start their lives over, again and again.
“What is worse is that the stories patients and communities tell us represent only the tip of the iceberg,” the NGO said.
Ituri suffered a conflict between ethnic-based militias from 1999 to 2003 that killed thousands before the intervention of a European force.
In 2021, Uganda deployed troops with the DRC’s consent to Ituri, ostensibly to clear the area of the ADF.
The Ugandan army has also launched an operation this month against a militia known as the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco).