SADC army chiefs see besieged Goma

KINSHASA

The chiefs of defence staff of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries held a high-level meeting in the city of Goma, capital of the embattled North Kivu province.

Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, Congolese army spokesman, said the meeting focused on assessing the progress of operations on the ground, and fine-tuning strategies for strengthening the various units.

The visit by the chiefs of staff was a strong signal of the commitment and determination of SADC and Burundi alongside the DRC, he said, noting that it was their first coordination meeting since the deployment of SADC troops in North Kivu.

It came two days after SADC armoured vehicles were hit during an M23 attack on Friday, as the generals visited the strategic town of Saké, when the rebels threw five bombs killing and wounding several people.

Placide Nzilamba, a member of Goma civil society said the city residents welcome the presence of the SADC generals, expressing the view that the visit has enabled them to understand the situation, “having experienced the reality on the ground in terms of insecurity.”

But some Goma residents were not sure that the visit would make a difference in changing the odds in the ongoing fighting, with Muisa Christian, a resident, saying that the future of Congolese security can only come from internal strategies from the FARDC (the DRC armed forces) rather than the SADC countries.

M23, seen by many as an autonomous unit of the Rwandese army, launched a major offensive back in 2021 and has since captured large swathes of North Kivu province, displacing hundreds of thousands of local residents.

Aid organisations fear a new humanitarian crisis in the region, as M23 advance threatens to cut off the city of Goma and leave millions of people struggling for food and medical help.

Political observers in the EAC and SADC region are largely resigned to the fact that the eastern part of the DRC has been plagued by violence from local and foreign armed groups for nearly 30 years.