The ceasefire beginning on February 18 has still to be agreed by the Congolese government and the M23 but would be a major step after months of diplomatic efforts to end the conflict amid ongoing fighting. The resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been mired in unabated violence for 30 years by scores of armed groups.
The region, which borders Rwanda and Burundi, has been targeted by the Rwanda-backed M23 since the group’s resurgence in 2021. Angola in recent weeks has resumed its mediation efforts and made its ceasefire proposal public overnight.
It follows the announcement last week that the United Nations would soon send peacekeepers to the eastern DRC to help enforce any ceasefire. A senior M23 official interviewed by AFP Thursday said the anti-governmental group was “willing” to observe a halt in fighting on condition that the Congolese armed forces “stop shooting at us.”
Contacted by AFP, the government in Kinshasa was not able to immediately respond. Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been signed — and broken — since late 2021, when the M23 again took up arms with the support of Rwanda and its army. M23 fighters seized the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma in January last year as part of a lightning offensive across the country’s east that left thousands dead.
