A committee imposes an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze on leaders of six armed groups fighting in the mineral-rich region.
The United Nations Security Council has sanctioned the leaders of six armed groups fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo amid escalating violence in the country's restive northeastern region.
“We are pleased that starting today, the U.N. Sanctions Committee for the Democratic Republic of the Congo is designating six additional armed group leaders,” Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy permanent representative to the U.N., said in a statement on Tuesday.
“These individuals are responsible for numerous abuses,” Wood said.
The committee imposed an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze on two leaders of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), one leader of the armed group Twirwaneho and another of the National People's Coalition for the Sovereignty of the Congo (CNPSC). rebels
Also added to the UN list were the military spokesman for the Tutsi-led M23 rebels and a leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), founded by Hutus who fled Rwanda after participating in the genocide of Rwanda. 1994 of more than 800,000 people. Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Tuesday's decision comes as violence in the country's northeast has displaced nearly seven million people over the past three decades as more than 120 armed groups compete for control of the mineral-rich region. Civilians fleeing the fighting describe harrowing accounts of violence by these groups, from summary executions and kidnappings to sexual violence.
Fighting there has renewed intensity since the M23 rebel group took up arms again in 2021 after lying dormant for almost a decade.
Kinshasa, along with the United States and the UN, accuses neighboring Rwanda of backing the group. Kigali denies the allegations.
“Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo must step back from the brink of war,” Wood said.
A complicated situation
In February, the group surrounded Sake, a town whose control could pave the way for the capture of Goma, the capital of North Kivu.
The M23 advance last week caused the Congolese army to reposition itself east of Sake, according to an assessment by Bintou Keita, special representative of the UN secretary-general in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and head of the UN mission in the country (MONUSCO).
“The fighting has further aggravated an already dire humanitarian situation,” Keita said, as more people are forced to seek refuge in severely overcrowded sites in and around Goma.
More than 400,000 people fled their homes, including 65,000 in the past two weeks, leading to a dramatic rise in cholera cases due to a lack of clean water, he said.
The expansion of the armed group has also left the city, the main headquarters of aid groups in the region, more isolated, causing a significant increase in attacks against humanitarian actors.
The redeployment of an army to fight the M23 also “exacerbated the security vacuum in other North Kivu territories and attracted new fighters from South Kivu,” he added.
The government of President Felix Tshisekedi, who recently won a second term in a closely contested election, has repeatedly vowed to quell the fighting in the northeast.
In 2022, soldiers from an East African regional bloc were deployed to fight the rebels, but the Congolese government ended their rule last December. Tshisekedi accused the regional force of colluding with the rebels rather than fighting them.
Kinshasa now depends on soldiers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was deployed to the northeast of the country last December.
Tshisekedi also called for the withdrawal of MONUSCO, the UN mission present in the Democratic Republic of Congo for 25 years, saying it failed to protect civilians.
The withdrawal of peacekeeping forces should be completed by the end of the year.
