The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s May 23 (M23) rebels have agreed to pull out their forces from the province of North Kivu in eastern DRC and comply with a ceasefire deal reached in November 2022, the East African Community (EAC) announced on Thursday evening.
The development came following a meeting between Bertrand Bisimwa, the chairperson of the M23 rebel movement, and Kenya’s former President Uhuru Kenyatta, as well as senior representatives of the DRC federal government, in the coastal city of Mombasa in southeastern Kenya.
Ex-President Kenyatta, who served as the fourth president of Kenya from 2013 to 2022, is the facilitator for the EAC to the Nairobi Process on Peace and Security in Eastern Congo launched by the EAC last November.
“The leaders of the M-23 agreed to continue to respect and cooperate with the East African Regional Force that has now begun to take control of the areas vacated by the M-23,” said Kenyatta following the meeting.
The Tutsi-led movement requested that the former Kenyan leader ensure the peace, safety, and rights of the people in eastern DRC. The rebels also urged the EAC to make sure all local and foreign-equipped groups fighting in the region cease fire and halt hostilities against the M23 forces until a peaceful resolution is reached between the parties.
“The M23 reiterates its readiness to the direct dialogue with the DRC government in order to find a lasting solution to the root causes of the conflict in the Eastern DRC,” M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said in a statement, adding that the group “was ready to start disengagement and withdraw.”
Over the past few weeks, following the kick-off of a peace process between the M23 rebel group and the DRC government, organized by the East African Community, the rebels handed over several previously-seized strategic positions, including a military base in the Rumangabo area in eastern DRC that was captured by the rebels shortly before the launch of the peace process.
In late December 2022, M23 militants also withdrew from the town of Kibumba, around 20 km from the city of Goma, handing positions over to the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF), manifesting support for the peace process overseen by the EAC and the agreements reached last November during a regional leaders’ summit in Angola’s capital Luanda.
The May 23 movement was initially founded in 2012, when it launched an insurgency that lasted about a year. The militant group recovered in 2017, and in 2022 it managed to occupy large areas in eastern DRC.