Rwandan President Paul Kagame (left), French President Emmanuel Macron and DRC President Felix Tshisekedi.
Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Emmanuel Macron of France held a productive call this morning.
They discussed the fruitful bilateral cooperation and areas of future collaboration, Rwanda’s presidency said on X.
During a productive conversation, the two Heads of State also extensively discussed regional matters, among them Eastern DRC.
They highlighted the need for a comprehensive political solution and they noted the processes in place to help achieve a solution including the Luanda Process and the EAC’s Nairobi Process.
The Nairobi Process is seeking to broker a solution between the Government of the DRC and Congolese armed groups operating in the eastern parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the Luanda Process focuses on the pacification of eastern DRC by creating the conditions for political dialogue between the DRC and Rwanda and addressing the renewed threat of the M23, which has been excluded from the Nairobi Process.
Weak governance in the DRC has paved the way for more than 250 armed groups to operate in Eastern DRC. Among the groups, M23 has posed the biggest threat to the government since 2022 when it picked up arms again after being dormant for more than a decade. Back then, it had conquered large swaths of territory, including Goma, before being pushed back by government forces.
Rwanda, which has denied backing M23, says the Rwandan rebel group – Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) – which includes combatants who participated in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, has been fully integrated into the Congolese army. It also claims that the Congolese government is engaged in “massive combat operations” aimed at expelling Congolese Tutsi civilians.
More than 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee in recent days as the M23 rebel fighters advance towards North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, bordering Rwanda and Uganda. (End)