The M23 armed group is advancing on strategic zones within the japanese Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after taking two key cities, the United Nations warned, underscoring the specter of a regional battle.
Current weeks have seen the speedy development of the Rwanda-backed M23, which has seized huge tracts of the japanese DRC, together with Goma and Bukavu.
“If our info is appropriate, [the M23] continues to advance in direction of different strategic areas in North and South Kivu,” the UN secretary-general’s particular envoy for the Nice Lakes area, Huang Xia, advised the Safety Council.
He stated whereas the “deep intentions of the M23 and their assist” stay unknown, “the chance of a regional conflagration is extra actual than ever,” including that such a battle would have “catastrophic” penalties.
The combating in current weeks has raised fears of a repeat of the Second Congo Conflict, from 1998 to 2003, which drew in a number of African international locations and resulted in thousands and thousands of deaths from violence, illness and hunger.
The pinnacle of the UN peacekeeping mission within the DRC (MONUSCO), Bintou Keita, additionally expressed concern in regards to the advance of the M23 – now “on the junction of the three borders between the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi”.
