Eastern and southern African regional blocs have appointed former leaders from Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to spearhead the peace process for the Democratic Republic of Congo where fighting has intensified in the east of the country.
The East African Community, EAC, and Southern African Development Community, SADC, have come together in recent weeks in an attempt to bring peace to eastern DRC, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized large swathes of territory, triggering a humanitarian crisis.
In a summit on February 8, the two blocs agreed to merge two separate peace processes based in Luanda and Nairobi that were operating before the latest escalation of violence.
They issued a statement late Monday that they had appointed ex-Kenya president Uhuru Kenyatta, ex-Ethiopia prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn and ex-Nigeria president Olusegun Obasanjo as facilitators of this new peace process.
According to the statement, the key goals included an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as humanitarian supplies and securitisation of the airport at Goma, one of the key cities taken by M23.
The statement said the EAC and SADC would hold a ministerial meeting on Friday to work on the details of the ceasefire.
