U.N. peacekeepers are unlikely to proceed with an agreed withdrawal from DR Congo’s conflict-torn North Kivu for as long as Rwandan 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 Rwanda-backed M23 militia that has displaced more than a million people, and a U.N. report said this week\u00a03,000-4,000 Rwandan troops\u00a0were fighting the Congolese army with “de facto control” over M23 operations.<\/p>\n
Rwanda 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\u00a0for the U.N. 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 Rwandan troops, the aggression by Rwanda 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 U.N. mission known as MONUSCO, has said there is no timeline for the pull-out, which was\u00a0requested\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 U.N. 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 Rwanda’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 Rwanda 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 U.N. estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.N. peacekeepers are unlikely to proceed with an agreed withdrawal from DR Congo’s conflict-torn North Kivu for as long as Rwandan troops remain in the eastern province, the Congolese foreign minister said on Saturday. North Kivu is battling a two-year insurgency by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia that has displaced more than a million people, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":14,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1129],"tags":[1621,1392,1469,140],"class_list":["post-12453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-security","tag-m23-rebels","tag-monusco","tag-north-kivu","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}