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NAIROBI. – Leaders of the East African Community (EAC) have agreed to send a regional force to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to quell the latest flare-up of violence that is sweeping across the northeast of the country.
The decision was made on Monday during an EAC summit in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame joined leaders of Burundi, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda as well as Tanzania’s ambassador to Kenya.
“The heads of state have instructed that the regional force, in cooperation with the DRC’s military and administrative forces, seek to stabilise and guarantee peace in DRC,” read the statement.
It also called for the enforcement of an “immediate ceasefire”.
The regional force received its operational mandate and outlined its operational structure, the statement said, without providing further details.
“The problems affecting the region like the crisis in Congo need a collective approach from all regional members of the East African Community,” said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni after the meeting.
“We must insist on working together because these people have suffered a lot,” he added on Twitter.
His government has sent in troops to help Congolese forces fight the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group blamed for thousands of deaths in eastern DRC and a string of bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala. – Al Jazeera
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