A ceasefire agreement has been reached between Kinshasa and Kigali in the conflict between the Congolese army and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebellion in North Kivu, in the east of the DR Congo, the Angolan mediator announced on Tuesday.
“The second ministerial meeting between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, held here in Luanda under the mediation of the Republic of Angola, resulted in the establishment of a ceasefire that will take effect at midnight on 4 August 2024,” the Angolan Presidency said.
Since the end of 2021, the armed forces of the DRC and the rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23), supported by Rwanda which has taken up arms again after several years of dormancy, have been fighting each other in North Kivu. Large swathes of the region are in the hands of the insurgents.
The ceasefire will be supervised by the “ad hoc verification mechanism,” which will be strengthened, Luanda said, referring to the pacification system already created in response to the violence.
The agreement is due to follow a 15-day humanitarian truce that expires at 23:59 (21:59 GMT) on 3 August, a truce that commits the belligerents “to silence their weapons and provide humanitarian personnel with unhindered access to vulnerable populations,” according to the White House National Security Council.
The first two weeks of the “humanitarian truce” were announced by Washington on 5 July. This has not been respected in some areas. In particular, four young civilians, including two children, were killed on 15 July in a bombardment in Bweremana, a town in the Masisi region located some 15km West of Goma, the provincial capital.
No further details of the announced ceasefire have been released, while the question remains as to whether it will have a wider scope than the truce, or whether it is merely an extension of it.
During an online briefing in July, NGOs warned of the catastrophic humanitarian and security situation in the region, calling for a lasting cessation of hostilities.
At the end of June, the M23 and the Rwandan army seized several towns in Lubero territory, in the north of North Kivu, following the collapse of the Congolese army and its auxiliary militias.
In the days that followed, nearly 50 soldiers were sentenced to death for “fleeing in the face of the enemy.” In March, Kinshasa decided to lift the moratorium on executions that had been in place since 2003.
In a report published last June, UN experts highlighted Rwanda’s role in destabilising eastern DRC, reiterating that Kigali is supporting the M23 rebellion.
Sf/fss/GIK/AFP/APA