Rwandan President Paul Kagame arrived in the Angolan capital Luanda on Tuesday to participate in a regional summit of heads of state to discuss peaceful solution as the crisis escalates in the Central Africa Republic, a statement from his office in Kigali said.
It is expected that the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) will held another mini-summit on the Central African crisis by next week.
Among other leaders expected to attend the summit are Angolan President João Lourenço and Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso and DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi.
Currently, armed groups are going head-to-head with re-elected President Faustin-Archange Touadéra as Angola attempts to mediate with a view to ending the conflict.
The Luanda summit organised under the theme, “Let’s promote peace, security, stability and development in the Great Lakes Region”, was preceded by a series of preparatory sessions since January 10.
The earlier sessions included meetings for chiefs of intelligence services and general chiefs of defence staff, as well as defence and Foreign ministers from the 12 countries comprising the ICGLR.
Fighting broke out in the CAR before the country’s December elections, with rebel groups pushing to seize the capital Bangui.
The CAR descended into conflict in 2013 when then President François Bozizé was overthrown by the Muslim Seleka movement.
The coup triggered a bloodbath between the Seleka and so-called Anti-Balaka self-defence forces before the intervention of UN peacekeepers.
CU/as/APA