According to media reports, the parties to a ceasefire in eastern DR Congo have agreed to a two-week extension.
A senior US official has been quoted saying that "there has been a two-week extension to the ceasefire” in eastern DR Congo.
Reports of the extension come after the elapse of the 72-hour ceasefire reportedly agreed between the Congolese army, FARDC, and the M23 rebels on Monday, December 11.
At the time, according to a statement from the White House, the National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the United States "welcomes the ceasefire committed to by the parties to the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
"Having an election when there is active conflict is not in anyone's interest," the US official reportedly said, adding that the United States expects elections to go ahead as planned on December 20.
The two parties had a fragile ceasefire since November 2022 which was broken on October 1 as hostilities renewed, threatening to end regional peace efforts.
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Ugandan troops under the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) have completed their exit from eastern DR Congo following the expiry of the Force mandate on December 8, the regional body announced on December 14.
The EAC Regional Force started to exit troops from eastern DR Congo in early December, with the first group – Kenyan troops – leaving Goma International Airport on December 3, after one year of deployment. A meeting of EAC army chiefs held in Arusha, Tanzania, on December 6, adopted the regional force’s exit plan.
The troops’ exit came after Kinshasa refused to renew their mandate, a decision that was communicated to the EAC Summit earlier on November 24.The Regional Force’s first force commander Maj Gen Jeff Nyagah resigned, in April, citing threats to his security. Kinshasa wanted the regional force to fight the M23, which was not part of the latter's operational mandate.
The Regional Force will complete its withdrawal on January 7.
The EAC Regional Force – with troops from Kenya, Burundi, Uganda, and South Sudan – was deployed to eastern DR Congo in November 2022 to support peace efforts and especially observe the withdrawal of the M23 rebels from positions they had captured from the Congolese army in North Kivu Province.
DR Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels – allegations Kigali dismisses, clarifying that the rebellion is an internal Congolese issue.
ALSO READ: ‘Premature departure’ of EAC force from DR Congo ‘undermines’ peace efforts
Eastern DR Congo is home to more than 130 local and foreign armed groups, including Rwanda’s FDLR, a genocidal outfit formed in mid-2000 by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
The FDLR was founded during a May 2000 meeting held in Lubumbashi, the second-largest city in DR Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia.
Eastern DR Congo has been volatile for nearly three decades. Multiple interventions, including by the UN’s longest and largest peacekeeping missions, MONUSCO, failed to end the violence. In August, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres communicated to the Security Council about the planned withdrawal of the MONUSCO.
Guterres said MONUSCO was entering "its final phase” in DR Congo. According to a plan set out in his report, the Mission would begin "an accelerated withdrawal,” even though the security and humanitarian situation is "deteriorating sharply.”
Experts say the planned withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) will only mark the force’s "monumental failure.”