East African leaders are heading to Burundi on Saturday for a regional summit to discuss the raging conflict in eastern Congo.
The talks were held in Bujumbura by the East African Community, which is leading mediation efforts to end resurgent fighting in the east of the giant central African nation.
“Agenda: Assessment of the Security Situation in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo & Way Forward,” the EAC said on Twitter on Friday as it announced the extraordinary summit.
Congolese presidential officials said Friday that President Felix Tshisekedi will attend.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who is accused of supporting rebel groups in the east, has arrived in Bujumbura, airport sources said, with several other EAC heads of state also present.
The meeting was held shortly after Pope Francis’ visit to Kinshasa, where he met with victims of the conflict and condemned the “inhuman violence” and “brutal cruelty” that had taken place.
Militias have plagued the mineral-rich region for decades, much of it a legacy of regional wars that took place in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Since November 2021, a rebel group known as M23 has seized part of the territory in the east and is located miles (kilometers) from the main commercial center of Goma.
The DRC accuses its smaller central African neighbor Rwanda of supporting M23, which UN experts, the United States and other Western countries agree.
Kigali denied the allegations.
Last week, Qatar had planned to host a meeting between Tshisekedi and Kagame, but diplomats said the Congolese leader refused to attend.
Tensions between the two countries escalated last week when Rwandan forces shot down a Congolese fighter jet it said had violated Rwandan airspace.
Kinshasa described the attack as an “act of war”.
The EAC decided to create a military force to pacify eastern Congo last year, with the first troops arriving in Goma in November.
The soldiers were allowed to use force to drive out the M23 fighters but not yet.
EAC group Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, who is mediating on behalf of the EAC, last month expressed concern about the “deeply deteriorating” situation in the east.