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EU welcomes Angola's diplomatic effort to seek pacification in DRCongo

The European Union Foreign Affairs ministers, meeting this Monday in Brussels, welcomed the diplomatic work that Angola has been carrying out with a view to pacification in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo).

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Speaking to the press after the meeting, the head of Portuguese diplomacy, José Gomes Cravinho, pointed out that one of the topics discussed by the 27 was "the situation in the Great Lakes", where "a situation of humanitarian catastrophe" is currently being lived, with "literally millions of dead over the last few years".

Lamenting that there is "an upsurge in violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo", João Gomes Cravinho noted that "there is a peace process, a political dialogue that is being mediated by Angola, between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo" , which the EU supports.

"We had the opportunity to welcome the work that Angola is doing and to identify several ways to support the European Union in pacifying the situation in eastern Congo", said the Portuguese minister.

On Sunday, the Community of East African States (ECA) announced that peace negotiations regarding the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the scene of clashes between various armed groups, should begin on 21 November in Nairobi.

A recent offensive by the M23 group, a former Tutsi rebellion, which regained the use of weapons in late 2021, saw a group advance towards Goma, capital of the North Kivu province with more than one million inhabitants, and is fuel tensions between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) and Rwanda. Kinshasa accuses Kigali of supporting the M23, which is denied by the Rwandan authorities.

Diplomatic initiatives are multiplying in an attempt to resolve the conflict. President João Lourenço, who chairs the International Conference of the Great Lakes Regions, met on Friday with his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, and, on Saturday, with the Congolese head of state, Félix Tshisekedi.

A confidential UN report, consulted in August by the France Presse agency, points to Rwanda's involvement with the M23. American leaders also mentioned the Rwandan army's aid to the M23.

Kigali denies and accuses DRCongo, which also denies, of colluding with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a movement of Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom were involved in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda.

According to the UN, recent fighting has displaced 188,000 people.

Exactly 10 years ago, in November-December 2012, M23 rebels occupied Goma for 10 days, before being defeated the following year by the Congolese army and peacekeepers.

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