The United Nations has urged all parties involved in the escalating tensions between Kinshasa and Kigali to “immediately end all forms of violence” in the border areas between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Repeated clashes between the DRC and Rwanda erupted again last month amid violent clashes along the border between the two African countries, which have blamed each other for supporting militant groups and even, in recent days, for cross-border attacks. “We are concerned about the deteriorating security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Stefan Duzarric, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a statement issued on Saturday. Dujarric denounced the “increase in attacks on civilians” by Congolese rebels and the “continued presence of other foreign armed groups”, particularly the anti-Kigali group known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda a threat to regional stability “. “We reaffirm our strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the DRC and strongly condemn the use of proxies,” he said.
US “concerned”
Dujarric said the United Nations “fully supports” the efforts of the African Union, which recently blamed Angolan President Joao Lurenko for mediating the Kinshasa-Kigali crisis. For its part, the US State Department said on Twitter that it was “concerned by reports of cross-border attacks between the DRC and Rwanda that resulted in the loss of life.” “We are looking for responsible, constructive leadership” from the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda, the US added. Relations between the two countries have been strained since the arrival in the eastern DRC of thousands of Rwandan Hutus – the ethnic group accused of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of members of the Tuci minority during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The development of relations between the neighbors followed the arrival of Felix Tshisekedi in 2019 as president of the PRC, but tensions have escalated again since last month.
