DRC hopes to leverage SADC regional forces to push back M23 rebels

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is reportedly hoping soldiers from the 10-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will help it regain ground from the M23 militia in the lawless east.
Troops from the regional bloc SADC, including from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi, have been discreetly arriving in DRC since the middle of December. “The SADC force has arrived,” Lieutenant-General Fall Sikabwe, a senior army officer, said Tuesday (16 January). “These are professionals who are well equipped and well trained — units that can reverse the situation on the ground,” he added. A SADC summit in May last year decided that the regional force will be deployed in the region to take over from an East African peacekeeping force, whose mandate was ended by Kinshasa which accused it of colluding with the rebels instead of fighting them.
In a separate but deleted development, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday (16 January). The US top diplomat said the United States was committed to supporting efforts toward a peaceful resolution of differences between Rwanda and DRC, and avoiding conflict in the eastern part of DRC. Its President Felix Tshisekedi has long accused Rwanda and its president of providing military support to M23 rebels, the latest iteration of Congolese Tutsi fighters to seize towns in parts of mineral-rich North Kivu. The wider region has struggled with conflict for decades as more than 120 armed groups fight for control of mineral resources or to defend their communities.