After taking two significant cities, the M23 armed group is advanceing toward strategic areas in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN warned, underscoring the threat of a regional conflict.
The Rwanda-backed M23, which has seized large tracts of the eastern DRC, including Goma and Bukavu, has recently advanced quickly.
“If our information is correct,]the M23] continues to advance towards other strategic areas in North and South Kivu”, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for the Great Lakes region, Huang Xia, told the Security Council.
He said while the “deep intentions of the M23 and their support” remain unknown, “the risk of a regional conflagration is more real than ever”, adding that such a conflict would have “catastrophic” consequences.
The Second Congo War, which lasted from 1998 to 2003 and resulted in millions of deaths from violence, disease, and starvation, has sparked fears of a repeat of it.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply