Congolese President Felix Tshisekediಞ is planning to reach out to opposition leaders to form a unified government. This comes as the country is facing a deadly humanitarian crisis caused by the chaos of the M23 rebels in the eastern region of the country.
🉐President Tshisekedi said he is going to begin discussions to form a unity government, as international pressure mounts for the Congolese government to resolve the crisis in the country's east.
🌳In some of his first statements since rebels captured the major cities, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi told a meeting of the ruling Sacred Union coalition to not be distracted by internal quarrels. "I lost the battle and not the war. I must reach out to everyone including the opposition. There will be a government of national unity," said Tshisekedi.
M23 Rebels’ Chaos
𒅌According to experts in the United Nations, several reports highlighted that the M23 rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from the neighboring Rwanda.
The rebels captured the eastern city of Goma, a city of 2 million people, last month, as about 3,000 people were killed. The rebels seized another provincial capital to Goma's south, Bukavu, a city of more than a million people, earlier this week. Bukavu sits roughly 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Burundi, whose troops have been fighting alongside the Congolese Army༒. Fighting between the Congolese army and M23 rebels has fanned fears of a wider regional war.
💜As per reports, in the initial days of the humanitarian crisis, President Tshisekedi told a meeting of the ruling Sacred Union coalition to not be distracted by internal quarrels. "I lost the battle and not the war. I must reach out to everyone including the opposition. There will be a government of national unity," said Tshisekedi.
🥀Regional leaders have urged talks between M23 and the Congolese government. But Tshisekedi has previously ruled out such dialogue, saying the rebels were a Rwandan proxy army.
UN Urges Action From Rwanda
🅠The UN Security Council passed a unanimous resolution on February 21 demanding that the M23 immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from all areas that it controls and fully reverse the establishment of illegitimate parallel administrations in the DRC territory.
൲"There is no military solution to the conflict in the east of the DRC," he said. "The offensive carried out by the M23 supported by Rwanda must be put to an end."
𓂃In response, the M23 rebels said that they are fighting to protect Tutsis and Congolese of Rwanda origin from discrimination and fighting against an ethnic Hutu militia group with links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Congo accuses the rebels of expanding their foothold in Congo's mineral-rich region and analysts have called those pretext for Rwanda's involvement.
Mass Killings
🗹According to Open Doors, an organization monitoring terrorism and persecution, 70 Christians were brutally beheaded with machetes by Islamist militants in the country on February 13. The attackers, members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS), rounded up the victims from the Lubero district before executing them inside a Protestant church in Kasanga.
