(Photo: Guerchom Ndebo/AFP)
Southern African countries agreed on Monday to deploy forces to help stem violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where armed groups have terrorized civilians for decades.
A summit of the 16 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which includes South Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania, backed the deployment “to restore peace and security in the east of the DRC”, the SADC said in a statement.
The decision was taken during talks attended by several heads of state, including DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, his South African counterpart Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa and ministers from the 16 member states.
It is not clear how many soldiers will be deployed nor for how long they will be deployed.
It will also bolster a regional East African military force that has taken over some areas previously held by the M23 rebel group since December last year. However, the forces failed to quell the uprising.
The Tutsi-led rebels are still present in North Kivu and still occasionally clash with rival militias.
The East African Community (EAC) force will also draw in troops from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.
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 M23 has conquered parts of the territory in North Kivu since taking up arms again in 2021 after years of inactivity.
The rebel campaign displaced more than one million people.
