DRC and M23 rebels to begin direct talks next week, mediator Angola says

A spokesperson for DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi advised the Reuters information company that they’d acquired an invite from Angola for the talks.

The federal government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels will maintain talks next week, mediator Angola has introduced.

A press release from President Joao Lourenco’s workplace on Wednesday mentioned the 2 events would begin “direct peace negotiations” within the Angolan capital Luanda on March 18.

Angola has beforehand acted as a mediator within the japanese DRC battle that escalated in late January when the M23 took management of the strategic japanese Congo metropolis of Goma. In February, M23 seized Bukavu, japanese Congo’s second-biggest metropolis.

Rwanda denies backing the M23 armed group within the battle, which is rooted within the unfold of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into DRC, and the battle for management of DRC’s huge mineral assets.

DRC President Felix Tshisekedi was in Angola on Tuesday to focus on the potential for talks and his spokesperson Tina Salama advised the Reuters information company on Wednesday that the federal government had acquired an invite from Angola however didn’t say whether or not it will take part within the talks.

M23 chief Bertrand Bisimwa wrote on X that the rebels had compelled Tshisekedi to the negotiating desk, calling it “the one civilized possibility to resolve the present disaster that has lasted for many years.”

The federal government has mentioned no less than 7,000 individuals have died within the battle since January.

Final week, the United Nations refugee company reported that almost 80,000 individuals have fled the nation due to the armed battle. Since January, 61,000 have arrived in neighbouring Burundi, the company’s deputy director of worldwide safety, Patrick Eba, mentioned.

M23 is certainly one of about 100 armed teams vying to management assets in japanese Congo, house to huge reserves of strategic minerals similar to coltan, cobalt, copper and lithium.

DRC’s neighbours, together with South Africa, Burundi, and Uganda, have troops stationed in east Congo, rising fears of an all-out regional struggle that might resemble the Congo wars of the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s that killed thousands and thousands of individuals.