{"id":965619,"date":"2024-07-13T19:45:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-13T19:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/dm-simulator-v2\/?p=965619"},"modified":"2024-07-13T19:45:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-13T19:45:51","slug":"congo-says-un-exit-unlikely-while-rwandan-troops-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/congo-says-un-exit-unlikely-while-rwandan-troops-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Congo says UN exit unlikely while Rwandan troops present"},"content":{"rendered":"

UN peacekeepers are unlikely to proceed with an agreed withdrawal from Congo’s conflict-torn North Kivu for as long as\u00a0Rwanda<\/span>n troops remain in the eastern province, the Congolese foreign minister said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

North Kivu is battling a two-year insurgency by the\u00a0Rwanda<\/span>-backed M23 militia that has displaced more than a million people, and a UN report said this week 3 000 – 4 000\u00a0Rwanda<\/span>n troops\u00a0were fighting the Congolese army with “de facto control” over M23 operations.<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u00a0<\/span>has in the past denied allegations from Congo and Western powers that it supports M23 with troops and weapons.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Congo’s government said\u00a0conditions had not been met for the UN mission to leave the province, and Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said the withdrawal – while still a priority – should take place in an orderly way when conditions allow.<\/p>\n

“The current situation with the presence of\u00a0Rwanda<\/span>n troops, the aggression by\u00a0Rwanda\u00a0<\/span>makes it very difficult to envisage such a situation right now,” she told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n

“So we are following the evolution of the context in order to find the most suitable moment to start this process.”<\/p>\n

Bintou Keita, head of the UN mission known as MONUSCO, has said there is no timeline for the pull-out, which was requested\u00a0by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi last September.<\/p>\n

A first phase saw peacekeepers complete their departure from South Kivu province in June.<\/p>\n

The full withdrawal of MONUSCO, which took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation in 2010 and currently numbers about 10 800 troops, will reshape security operations in mineral-rich eastern Congo, where many armed groups fight over territory and resources.<\/p>\n

Wagner said Congo’s efforts to raise international awareness of\u00a0Rwanda<\/span>‘s involvement in the M23 conflict were\u00a0starting\u00a0to bear fruit, and expressed the hope that targeted sanctions would be imposed as a result.<\/p>\n

“Our audiences are becoming more aware of the fact that\u00a0Rwanda\u00a0<\/span>is maybe a peacekeeper in some countries, but it is a warmonger in the Great Lakes region,” she said.<\/p>\n

Regarding international pressure, she added that “it is not about people, it is about the decision-makers who have to be held accountable. And this is what we ask for when we talk about sanctions”.<\/p>\n

The fighting in North Kivu province has driven more than 1.7 million people from their homes, taking the total number of Congolese displaced by multiple conflicts to a record 7.2 million, according to UN estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UN peacekeepers are unlikely to proceed with an agreed withdrawal from conflict-torn North Kivu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":965620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}