Demokratische Republik Kongo

A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced 26 people accused of involvement in armed groups, including the M23, to death after a high-profile trial that started late last month.

A United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution adopted this week makes available UN peacekeeping resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – under strict conditions – to the tri-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission in the country’s troubled eastern region.

Rebels from the M23 movement captured a border town in eastern DR Congo without a fight Sunday, local sources said, the same day a cease-fire between DR Congo and neighboring Rwanda was meant to come into force. Ishasha, on the border with Uganda, was the latest town to fall to the majority-ethnic Tutsi movement backed by Rwanda.

A ceasefire beginning on Aug. 4 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was agreed on Tuesday following talks between DRC and Rwanda, the Angola presidency, which has been mediating the talks, said in a statement. The statement did not specify which parties had agreed to the ceasefire, nor how long it would last.

Fighting between warring parties in the volatile east of DR Congo appeared to have calmed Thursday, local sources told AFP. They were speaking a day after the United States announced a 15-day extension of a humanitarian truce between the M23 rebels and government forces.

[…] The attack took place on Saturday in the village of Kinsele, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Kinshasa, the capital.  … As Congo battles armed groups in the east, violence has also intensified in the western part of the country. The attackers were members of the Mobondo militia, an armed group presenting itself as defenders of the Yaka people.

U.N. peacekeepers are unlikely to proceed with an agreed withdrawal from Congo's conflict-torn North Kivu for as long as Rwandan troops remain in the eastern province, the Congolese foreign minister said on Saturday.

Some 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside the M23 in east DR Congo, said a UN experts report seen by AFP Monday, which noted that Kigali has “de facto control” of the rebels’ operations.

[…] Ms. Keita, who also heads the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (MONUSCO), expressed grave concern over the rapid growth of the armed group Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) in North and South Kivu provinces.

As the year-end closure of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) looms ever larger, last week saw MONUSCO wrap up and shutter its Bukavu office, the operations nerve centre in South Kivu for 20 plus years.