Solution, Resolution

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Representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda agreed on a deal Wednesday to pause fighting in the eastern part of the DRC, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The cease-fire will take effect on Aug. 4 at midnight, a statement read, following the expiration of a US-backed humanitarian truce that some of the fighters failed to respect. The agreement also provided for the creation of an “ad hoc reinforced verification mechanism.”

Angola, which announced the deal, had an African Union mandate to secure a political settlement to a conflict that has battered eastern Congo since 2022, and hosted talks between the foreign ministers of both countries – Rwanda’s Olivier Nduhungirehe and the DRC’s Thérèse Kayikwamba.

Wednesday’s breakthrough came days after DRC President Félix Tshisekedi accused his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto of “mismanaging” the Nairobi Process, an initiative launched in 2022 that also aimed at resolving the conflict.

Congolese armed forces have been fighting rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23), predominantly in the North Kivu region. The M23 is mostly composed of Rwandans, but the government in Rwanda’s capital Kigali has repeatedly denied allegations from their Congolese counterparts in Kinshasa that it backed the group. Meanwhile, the Economist reported earlier this week that Rwandan soldiers in Congo likely outnumber the M23 rebels, making the situation more intractable.

Still, whether the fresh agreement will be respected by both sides is still a question. During the ongoing humanitarian truce, at least four young people were killed in a bomb attack in North Kivu.

In addition, the Angolan statement did not specify whether the new deal had a wider scope than the one fostered by the US, Le Monde wrote.

Belgium, once the colonial power ruling the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, welcomed the agreement. It marks “an essential step to ease the suffering of the population and lead to a resolution of the conflict in eastern DRC,” said Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib.

The Congo-M23 conflict is the latest of a series of conflicts in eastern DRC, where approximately six million people have been killed since 1996, Al Jazeera noted.