Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda aired their dispute over one of the armed groups causing instability along their borders to the world this week. The UN has conceded that its peacekeepers can't defeat the M23. … Kinshasa has increasingly questioned the value of the UN peacekeepers.

The opening of the September parliamentary ordinary session, electoral preparations, national and regional efforts to address insecurity in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and anti-MONUSCO protests marked the reporting period.

The 250 Ukrainian troops with the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo have returned home to help fight Russian forces. When the withdrawal of Ukraine's aviation unit was announced in March, diplomats warned it could leave the UN mission seriously short of helicopters. … The eight Ukrainian helicopters made up about a third of the UN fleet.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has signed a troop deployment deal with the East African Community (EAC), signalling the imminent formal sending of forces to combat rebels in the east of the country.

At least one person has been killed in the eastern Congolese city of Beni as shots were fired during another protest against the United Nations’ MONUSCO peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

[…] An army spokesman confirmed the attack on Wednesday, which took place in Ituri province on Tuesday evening, and blamed it on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan militia active in eastern DRC since the 1990s, which has pledged allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) group.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Monusco, is evacuating its base in the eastern town of Butembo. Local civil society actors say they feel 'a sense of satisfaction' and congratulate 'the population who mobilised as one to demand the unconditional withdrawal of this contingent'.

Soldiers from Burundi have deployed to the troubled eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as the first part of a recently created East African regional force to respond to crises. … Tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, which the former has accused of supporting the recently resurgent M23 rebel group, in part led to the East African Community creating the regional force earlier this year.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Africa did not achieve much in finding a solution to thorny relations between Rwanda and Congo. But his high-profile trip was probably not completely in vain.

Read also: The Potential and Limits of the New U.S. Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, CSIS.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday to raise concerns that tensions with neighboring Rwanda could spread instability in the region. Political analysts say the United States is also concerned about Russia and China's access to rare earth minerals in the DRC.