Rwanda on Sunday welcomed calls for a summit of two African regional groups to discuss the crisis in Democratic Republic of Congo, as Tanzania became the latest country to announce the loss of soldiers there.
M23 fighters, who the UN and several nations say are backed by Rwanda, have made substantial gains in eastern DRC, taking the major city of Goma last week and vowing to march on the capital, Kinshasa, across the country.
It is the latest escalation in a mineral-rich region devastated by decades of fighting involving dozens of armed groups, and has rattled the continent, with regional blocs holding emergency summits over the spiralling tensions.
The 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Friday called for a summit with the eight-country East African Community (EAC) to “deliberate on the way forward regarding the security situation in the DRC”.
The Rwandan foreign ministry said it “welcomes the proposed joint summit”, adding in a statement it had “consistently advocated for a political solution to the ongoing conflict”.
The SADC emergency session was not attended by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda — which is not a member of the bloc — but Congolese leader Felix Tshisekedi was present virtually.
Earlier in the week, Kagame appeared at an EAC emergency session when the DRC president was absent.
Foreign fighters killed
The SADC meeting was convened after soldiers from two member states, South Africa and Malawi, were killed in the fighting around Goma, where they were deployed.
Some were part of SAMIDRC (Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo), a regional force tasked with helping the DRC “achieve lasting peace and stability”.
On Sunday, Tanzania announced that two of its soldiers with the same force had also been killed in the recent fighting. Army spokesperson Gaudentius Ilonda said four others had been wounded and were receiving treatment in Goma.
Already 13 South Africans, three Malawians and a Uruguayan national serving with either the UN peacekeeping force MONUSCO or with SAMIDRC have died in the DRC fighting.
In Sunday’s statement, Rwanda’s foreign ministry criticised the presence of the SAMIDRC force in the DRC, saying it should “not be there because they are adding to the problems that already existed”.
Kagame has made similar remarks previously.
While Rwanda has never admitted to military involvement in support of the M23 group, a United Nations expert report last July said it had roughly 4,000 troops in eastern DRC, and accused Kigali of having “de facto” control over the M23.
Rwanda alleges that the DRC supports and shelters the FDLR, an armed group created by former Hutu leaders who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The intensified fighting has provoked fears of a humanitarian crisis.
In a region already home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, the fighting has forced another 500,000 people to flee their homes, said the UN.
