UN peacekeeper withdrawal paused in DR Congo

The foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has said the UN peacekeeping mission in the country is unlikely to leave while Rwandan troops remain present on the ground supporting an insurgency by the M23 armed group.

The peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym MONUSCO, was asked by the Congolese government to accelerate its withdrawal last year after two difficult decades of deployment.

But the foreign minister, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, told Reuters on 14 July that the pullout of some 11,000 peacekeepers is now difficult to envisage because of “aggression by Rwanda”.

Rwanda has 3,000-4,000 troops on the ground in eastern DRC fighting alongside the M23, according to the latest report from UN experts, who described that as a conservative estimate.

It has long been known that Rwanda was supporting the M23, but the report found that it has “de facto control and direction” over the rebels and has been critical to the group’s massive territorial expansion in North Kivu province since the start of the year.

MONUSCO recently completed the first phase of its withdrawal, departing from the war-scarred South Kivu province, which has seen more than 100,000 blue helmets rotate through it since the early 2000s.

A MONUSCO spokesperson said the withdrawal in South Kivu took place amid a concerning security environment marked by “an overall remobilisation of armed actors” and “high regional tensions”.

Though MONUSCO has tried to hand over bases in South Kivu to the Congolese security forces, deployments have been limited because the army has other security priorities and few resources, according to a recent UN report.

For more background on the withdrawal and the future of the blue helmets see our story from last week, kickstarting a new series on the evolution of peacekeeping in today’s complex, multipolar world: