Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have said they would withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Uvira at the request of the U.S. administration, which had\u00a0criticised seizure\u00a0of the town last week as a threat to mediation efforts.<\/p>\n
The rebels\u00a0entered\u00a0Uvira, on the border with Burundi, less than a week after the presidents of Congo and Rwanda met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington and\u00a0affirmed their commitment to a peace deal known as the Washington Accords.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State\u00a0Marco Rubio\u00a0said on Saturday that Rwanda’s actions in eastern Congo violated the Washington Accords and vowed to “take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept.”<\/p>\n
Rwanda denies supporting M23 and has blamed Congolese and Burundian forces for the renewed fighting. A report by a United Nations group of experts in July said Rwanda exercised command and control over the rebels.<\/p>\n
WITHDRAWAL A ‘UNILATERAL TRUST-BUILDING MEASURE’<\/strong><\/p>\n Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance of insurgents that includes M23, said in a post overnight on X that the rebels would withdraw.<\/p>\n The move was a “unilateral trust-building measure in order to give the Doha peace process the maximum chance to succeed,” he said.<\/p>\n M23 is not party to the Washington-mediated negotiations but has been participating in separate, parallel talks with the Congolese government, hosted by Qatar.<\/p>\n A civil society activist in Uvira told Reuters on Tuesday that the rebels were still there.<\/p>\n A rebel source said both M23 and Congolese forces would withdraw 5 km (3 miles) from Uvira to establish a buffer zone, something M23 had proposed at a press conference last week.<\/p>\n Congo and Burundi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.<\/p>\n M23 staged a lightning offensive in January, seizing eastern Congo’s two biggest cities in fighting that has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.<\/p>\n The insurgents have since worked to establish a parallel administration in the east, potentially setting the vast Central African country up for an enduring fracture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have said they would withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Uvira at the request of the U.S. administration, which had\u00a0criticised seizure\u00a0of the town last week as a threat to mediation efforts. The rebels\u00a0entered\u00a0Uvira, on the border with Burundi, less than a week after the presidents of Congo and Rwanda met with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","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_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","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_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2362,3028],"tags":[3016,140,3804],"class_list":["post-18925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-rwanda","tag-uvira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18925","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=18925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18926,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18925\/revisions\/18926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}