Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embaló who is the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) arrived in Rwanda Sunday on a working visit to discuss the security situation in DR Congo.
This is the second trip by Mr Embaló in the Great Lakes region after a similar visit in Kinshasa early this weekend where he held talks with Congolese President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo on the same issue.
“This afternoon at Urugwiro Village, President Paul Kagame received President Umaro Sissoco Embaló of Guinea-Bissau” the President’s office in Kigali said in a statement.
Reports indicate that the two leaders discussed ways to further strengthen bilateral ties between Rwanda and Guinea-Bissau, and exchanged views on the security situation in the region.
This is the second visit of a head of state to Rwanda, one week after President Kagame held talks with his Angolan counterpart João Lourenço to normalize relations between kigali and Kinshasa which had traded accusations of backing each other’s rebels.
Lourenço as chair of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), serves as the facilitator of the peace efforts between Rwanda and DR Congo, through the Luanda roadmap.
DR Congo has accused Rwanda of backing M23 rebels as they advanced in recent weeks on key towns in the east of the country.
The government of Felix Tshisekedi recently expelled the Rwandan ambassador to Kinshasa, citing Kigali’s role in aiding and abetting the rebel’s latest campaign against the Congolese military.
Kigali has in turn repeatedly accused Kinshasa of integrating what it called the genocidal FDLR forces into its FARDC army and empowered them to shell Rwandan territory from DR Congo.
The M23 was defeated by Congo’s army (FARDC) and special MONUSCO forces in 2013 but have since regrouped and by November 2021 began its offensive in the east of the country.
CU/as/APA