Rwandan, Congolese leaders to meet over eastern DRC conflict

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — 

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame was owed to conscionable his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi successful Tanzania connected Saturday arsenic determination leaders convene successful a bid to defuse the struggle successful Democratic Republic of Congo.

The M23 equipped radical has rapidly seized swathes of territory successful the mineral-rich eastbound DRC successful an violative that has near thousands dormant and displaced immense numbers.

The radical took the strategical metropolis of Goma past week and is pushing into the neighboring South Kivu state successful the latest occurrence of decades-long turmoil successful the region.

Kagame and Tshisekedi are owed to be a associated acme successful the Tanzanian metropolis of Dar es Salaam, bringing unneurotic the 8 countries of the East African Community and 16-member South African Development Community.

Since the M23 reemerged successful 2021, respective bid talks hosted by Angola and Kenya person failed.

Rwanda denies subject enactment for the M23 but a U.N. study said past twelvemonth it had astir 4,000 troops successful DRC and profited from smuggling immense amounts of golden and coltan -- a mineral captious to phones and laptops -- retired of the country.

Rwanda accuses the DRC of sheltering the FDLR, an equipped radical created by taste Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Local fears

The acme comes arsenic the M23 advances connected the municipality of Kavumu, which hosts an airdrome captious to supplying Congolese troops.

Kavumu is the past obstruction earlier the South Kivu provincial superior Bukavu connected the Rwandan border, wherever panic has acceptable in.

A Bukavu nonmigratory said shops were barricading their fronts and emptying storerooms for fearfulness of looting, portion schools and universities suspended classes connected Friday.

"The borderline with Rwanda is unfastened but astir impassable due to the fact that of the fig of radical trying to cross. It's full chaos," they said.

U.N. rights main Volker Turk warned: "If thing is done, the worst whitethorn beryllium yet to come, for the radical of the eastbound DRC, but besides beyond the country's borders."

'Gang rape, slavery'

Turk said astir 3,000 radical had been confirmed killed and 2,880 injured since M23 entered Goma connected Jan. 26, and that last tolls were apt overmuch higher.

He besides said his squad was "currently verifying aggregate allegations of rape, pack rape and intersexual slavery."

The M23 has already installed its ain politician and section authorities successful Goma, the superior of North Kivu province.

It has vowed to spell each the mode to the nationalist superior Kinshasa, adjacent though it lies astir 1,600 kilometers distant crossed the immense country, which is astir the size of Western Europe.

The DRC army, which has a estimation for mediocre grooming and corruption, has been forced into aggregate retreats.

The violative has raised fears of determination war, fixed that respective countries are engaged successful supporting DRC militarily, including South Africa, Burundi and Malawi.

Regional overseas ministers gathered connected Friday for the archetypal time of the acme successful Tanzania up of their leaders connected Saturday.

Kenyan overseas caput Musalia Mudavadi said determination was a "golden opportunity" to find a solution, calling for the erstwhile bid processes hosted by Angola and Kenya to beryllium merged into one.