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SA troops in DRC remained barricaded in their bases, down to one meal a day and waiting to be rescued

Details

sandf thumb medium90 89Daily Maverick reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to attend a joint summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) in Dar es Salaam on Saturday to address the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who are the main belligerents in the deadly fighting over the past 12 days, will also attend the joint summit. Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said it was “most likely” that Ramaphosa would attend. The joint summit was decided on by the EAC at a summit last week and agreed to by SADC at a summit in Harare on Friday. Fourteen SA were killed in fighting the M23 Congolese rebels, strongly backed by the Rwandan Defence Force. The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers are part of the SADC Mission in DRC (SAMIDRC), which is mandated to disarm the M23 rebels. It has been fighting them for more than a year but the fighting intensified on 23 January leading to the deaths of the 14 SANDF soldiers, some of whom were attached to the UN peacekeeping mission Monusco. Though SADC last December extended SAMIDRC’s mandate for a year until December 2025 and Ramaphosa suggested it would wind down only in accordance with confidence-building measures and a ceasefire, it is not clear that after the heavy losses over the past two weeks that it will remain in the DRC much longer. Its troops are surrounded in eastern DRC in deteriorating conditions. A military source reported on Monday that the SANDF troops in their two bases at Goma airport and at Mubambiro near Sake to the northwest, remained “barricaded in base, no hostilities. Down to one meal per day because UN tells them it can’t provide more. Awaiting orders.”

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Peter Fabricius at Daily Maverick


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