The East African Community (EAC) announced Sunday that a new round of peace talks will be held on November 21 to try to end the open conflict between the Congolese Army and the March 23 Movement (M23) in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the country.
The meeting will be held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, although the EAC statement on its Twitter account does not specify either the participants or the duration of the talks.
This announcement comes amid renewed fighting in recent hours in North Kivu, ever closer to the capital, Goma, where tens of thousands of people have arrived in recent weeks to escape the fighting.
According to the United Nations, 188,000 people have fled their homes since October 20, for a total of nearly 240,000 since the beginning of this latest conflict, which has provoked a diplomatic crisis between DRC and Rwanda over Kigali’s alleged support for the armed group — denied by Rwandan authorities — and the intervention of a Kenyan support force.
The announcement also comes after several days of mediation efforts with the visit this Sunday to DRC of former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta following Saturday’s meetings between Angolan President Joao Lourenço and his Congolese counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi. Lourenço had visited Rwandan President Paul Kagame the day before.
