SADC troops to help DRC

– The Democratic Republic of Congo is counting on soldiers from a southern African regional bloc to help it regain ground from the M23 militia in the lawless east, a senior army officer said Tuesday.

After several years of dormancy, M23, or the March 23 Movement, rebels took up arms again in late 2021 and seized vast swathes of the country’s eastern North Kivu province.

Western governments and the United Nations have said neighbouring Rwanda has supported the M23, allegations Kigali denies.

Troops from the 10-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been discreetly arriving in the DRC since the middle of December.

They include soldiers from South Africa, a regional military heavyweight, Tanzania and Malawi. “The SADC force has arrived,” said Lieutenant-General Fall Sikabwe, coordinator for military operations in North Kivu.

“These are professionals who are well equipped and well trained – units that can reverse the situation on the ground,” he said.

The deployment of the regional force was decided at a SADC summit in May.

The troops will take over from an East African peacekeeping force, whose mandate was ended by Kinshasa, which accused it of colluding with the rebels instead of fighting them.

Sikabwe said the new troops would engage in “an offensive mission to regain territory illegally occupied by the enemy”.

He said those displaced could return home once this had been achieved.

The DRC has also asked for the withdrawal of a UN peacekeeping force which has started, the foreign minister said on Saturday.

It is due to be completed by the end of this year.

The UN Security Council voted in December to accede to Kinshasa’s demand for a gradual pull-out by the Monusco mission, which had arrived in 1999.

Despite a volatile domestic situation, the government had for months been calling for an accelerated withdrawal of the peacekeepers.

Kinshasa considers the UN force to be ineffective in protecting civilians from the armed groups and militias that have plagued the eastern DRC for three decades. –