11 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has extended until the end of the month the state of emergency declared in May 2021 in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, in the northeast of the country, particularly in the latter where bloody clashes between the The army and the M23 rebel movement have caused the displacement of half a million people.
After a meeting of the security and interior leadership, the Government has announced a new 15-day extension that will come into force on February 16, the government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, has announced.
“The maintenance of this exceptional measure supports the government will allow the Armed Forces to consolidate the achievements of previous operations and continue actions with a view to restoring peace and security in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” according to the statement. collected by Actualité.
The fighting against the M23 has led, for example, in the last hours and according to Radio Okapi, to the emergency eviction of a camp for demobilized guerrillas in Mubambiro, just 20 kilometers from the capital of North Kivu, Goma.
The fearsome militias of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) operate in Ituri, loyal to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA) and accused by the United Nations of the murders of more than 1,200 civilians in 2021.
The mediator of the Community of East African States for the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uhuru Kenyatta, has called for the full deployment of international forces in the region to try to contain the hostilities between the Army and the rebels amid difficult diplomatic efforts to end the crisis.
The Kenyan mediator and former president thus asks the so-called East African Community Regional Force (EARCF) to order a deployment “without delay” throughout “the entire eastern DRC” to “interpose between the sides in conflict” and guarantee security in the areas where the fighting has ended, according to a statement published by the portal ‘The East African’.
Kenyatta made this statement after an emergency summit of East African heads of state was held in Burundi last weekend – which the mediator was unable to attend due to logistical problems – and which, in principle, concluded with a commitment to reinforce the peace plan for the Congolese region and reach a diplomatic solution between DRC and Rwanda, accused by its Congolese neighbor of aiding the rebel group, something that the Rwandan government has categorically denied.
