Information reaching Taarifa Political Desk reveals that the European Union parliament on Wednesday held a meeting to discuss the security situation in Eastern DRC and the forthcoming elections.
DRC is gearing up for presidential elections in December, 2023 despite the tricky security situation in the Kivu provinces.
The DRC envoy in Benelux and to the EU, Ambassador Christian Ndongala Nkuku told participants that the security situation in eastern DRC, particularly in North Kivu, “is essentially positive.”
He recalled the conclusion of several ceasefire agreements, with the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of rebel troops from the positions they occupy.
The Congolese diplomat, however, qualified this positive evolution of the situation because, he explained, “despite the agreement between the parties, the rebel group M-23 had just started a new offensive”.
Ambassador Ndongala referred to the meeting held on June 3 in Luanda, Angola, the objective of which was to take stock of the progress of the Luanda and Nairobi processes, in particular the quartering of M23 troops in Kindu, in the province of Maniema, before their demobilization.
The Luanda summit, he recalled, had also decided to deploy SADC troops on Congolese soil.
The Kinshasa government accuses neighbouring Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels and thus Ambassador Ndongala told particiapants at the meeting that his government wants Brussels to go further, by taking sanctions against Rwanda.
Rwanda denies having any hand in supporting the M23 rebels and blames Kinshasa of of working with the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR).
Among the leaders of the FDLR are people who participated in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide who have lived in eastern DRC for nearly three decades.
According to Ndongala , the DRC expects the EU to strengthen the effective capacities of its defense forces.
Elections scheduled for December
Regarding the electoral process, the DRC Envoy Ndongala praised the work done by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which removed three million people from the electoral lists, for various reasons.
He also mentioned the enlistment of displaced people in refugee camps, as well as that of Congolese in the diaspora in five pilot countries. Mr. Ndongala also proposed to MEPs the creation of a support mission for the ongoing electoral process.
As for the humanitarian situation in Kalehe, in South Kivu, the representative of the DRC indicated that it is worrying, with a balance sheet of 583 dead and 5,255 missing.
He specified that as of June 7, the aid allocated to the survivors amounted respectively to one million US dollars granted by the Congolese government, three million US dollars from the UN and one million dollars from China, while the contribution from the EU has not been disclosed.