East African Leaders Will Have Discussions Over The Crisis In The DR Congo.

In order to address the escalating war in eastern DR Congo, politicians from East Africa were traveling to Burundi on Saturday.

 

The East Africa Community, which is driving mediation attempts to put a stop to the revived conflict in the unrest-ridden east of the massive central African country, is hosting the meetings in Bujumbura.

 

The EAC announced the emergency session on Twitter on Friday with the subject line “Agenda: Evaluation of the Security Situation in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo & Way Forward.”

 

On Friday, a representative of the Congolese government said that President Felix Tshisekedi will be there.

 

According to an airport source, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, which is suspected of supporting rebel groups in the east, and a number of other EAC heads of state have arrived in Bujumbura.

 

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The gathering takes place just after Pope Francis visited Kinshasa, where he spoke with war victims and denounced the “brutal crimes” occurring.

 

The mineral-rich area has been plagued by militias for decades; many of them are a result of local hostilities that erupted in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

 

Since November 2021, the M23 rebel group has taken control of significant areas in the east and has gotten as close as a few miles (kilometers) to Goma, the region’s main commercial center.

 

The UN experts, the United States, and other Western nations concur with the DRC’s accusation that its smaller neighbor Rwanda is supporting the M23 in central Africa.

 

Kigali disputes the accusation.

 

Tshisekedi and Kagame were supposed to meet last week in Qatar, but according to officials, the Congolese president declined to travel.

 

Last week, when Rwandan military opened fire on a Congolese fighter plane they said had breached Rwandan airspace, tensions between the two nations grew even worse.

 

Kinshasa called it an assault that was “an act of war.”

 

In November of last year, the EAC made the decision to establish a military force to pacify eastern Congo.

 

Although they are legally allowed to use force to remove M23 combatants, the troops have not yet done so.

 

Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda are included in the EAC.