AFRICA/CONGO RD - Crisis in the DRC: is an external intervention being prepared?

Friday, 19 May 2017 international politics   armed groups  

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - A meeting on the crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi was held where representatives of the two States were not invited and Angola was the only African State admitted. The meeting of the International Contact Group on the Great Lakes was held on May 15 in Washington with the participation of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, as well as the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and UN representatives, the European Union, the African Union and the International Organization of Francofonia.
Faced with the non-execution of the San Silvestro Agreements and the division of the opposition to President Joseph Kabila, there is a real risk that external actors may intervene in the Congolese crisis. The meeting in Washington, which saw the participation of the government of Luanda, may have been a step in that direction.
In the face of political impasse, the security situation in the DRC is getting worse. It is not only the peripheral areas that are threatened by the presence of armed gangs; even the capital Kinshasa was theater of a spectacular assault on the Central Prison in Makala on May 17 that allowed 4,000 prisoners to escape. Among them Ne Muanda Nsemi, leader of the Bundu dia Kongo sect. The authorities accuse Bundu dia Kongo of being in charge of the assault on the prison. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 19/5/2017)


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