Ilunga leads rebels in Lusaka

A delegation of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) led by Emile Ilunga was in the Zambian capital Lusaka to take part in preparatory talks ahead of a regional heads of state summit scheduled for Saturday to sign a ceasefire agreement for the DRC, the Chinese news agency said on Monday. It quoted a Zambian government spokesman as saying the rebels would participate in a meeting of defence ministers scheduled for Wednesday, although confirmation was still awaited from participating countries. The 10-person rebel team in Lusaka included Kabila’s former foreign minister, Bizima Karaha, and other senior members of the movement, the agency said. [See Item: irin-english-1073, titled “DRC: IRIN Background report on peace efforts”] Rebel factions reportedly not united Meanwhile, attempts to unite three rebel factions ahead of the Lusaka summit have failed, Uganda’s ‘New Vision’ newspaper reported on Tuesday. It said Ugandan, Rwandan and Tanzanian officials in Kampala had on Monday failed to “harmonise the differences” among the factions because the RCD faction led by Ilunga had boycotted the meeting. Ilunga’s group instead flew to Lusaka where it reportedly presented itself as the “de facto RCD delegation,” the newspaper said. The other rebel factions are the RCD-Kisangani group led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and the Mouvement de liberation congolais (MLC) of Jean-Pierre Bemba. RCD-Goma officials had recently told IRIN the three factions had reconciled. Kagame, Mubarak discuss conflict Rwandan Vice-President and Defence Minister Paul Kagame on Monday travelled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on ending the DRC conflict, news agencies said. The three-day visit was undertaken at Mubarak’s invitation. UN Security Council hopes for peace deal in Lusaka Members of the UN Security Council on Monday expressed concern at the situation in the DRC, following a closed-door briefing by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy for the DRC Peace Process, Moustapha Niasse. The Council, in a statement from its president, expressed its hope that there would be a successful outcome to this week’s peace summit in Lusaka. Niasse, who visited 15 African countries in April and May, on Friday briefed Annan on the findings of his mission. National debate moderators named The committee appointed by the government to organise the proposed national debate has announced that the moderators of the debate will be Emile Derlin Zinsou of the Francophonie organisation, Don Mateo of the Italy-based St. Egidio Community, and OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim, Congolese state television reported on Monday. The report gave neither a date nor a venue for the proposed inter-Congolese meeting, which had been earlier planned for June in Nairobi. 660,000 people displaced The total number of internally-displaced people (IDPs) in the DRC is now estimated at 660,000, the latest report from the Office of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator said. The report, received by IRIN on Tuesday, said the provinces with the highest number of displaced persons were South Kivu and Katanga, with 220,000 and 150,000 IDPs, respectively. Meanwhile, the DRC was hosting some 285,360 refugees from neighbouring countries as of 15 June, the report said. The refugees included 145,860 Angolans, 20,000 Burundians, 61,000 Sudanese, 1,500 Ugandans, 25,000 Rwandans and 32,000 people from Congo-Brazzaville. There were an estimated 117,000 DRC refugees in Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, the report added. Almost 10 percent malnutrition in Kinshasa Meanwhile, a recent nutritional survey conducted in Kinshasa revealed “alarming” malnutrition rates among the city’s residents, the report said. The survey found that 9.8 percent of Kinshasa’s population suffered from acute malnutrition, compared to 6.2 percent during the same period last year. The study estimated that the number of malnourished children in the capital already exceeded 100,000. WFP is feeding some 35,000 vulnerable people in Kinshasa, the report added.