What exit strategy from the Democratic Republic of Congo for MONUSCO? The Congolese government and the UN mission have submitted a working document to the Security Council allowing for the gradual withdrawal of peacekeeping forces and the dismantling of bases.
- Advertisement -
With our special correspondent in Kinshasa, Sonia Rolley
The first affected provinces are Central Kasai and Kasai. The bases were to be closed before 2021. Then it’s Tanganyika province’s turn. Once again, the UN wants to fall back on the three main provinces in the eastern part of the country.
Returning from a field visit, mission number 2 in charge of operations, American David Gressly, explained it yesterday during the mission’s bi-monthly press conference: the last peacekeepers to leave Kasaï and Kasaï Central are to be replaced by 300 UN police officers. For a short while. From Goma, David Gressly explains.
“In both provinces, the national security forces can do without us. I think it’s that easy. I even think these offices will be closed by the end of June next year. Among other things, this allows us to focus our efforts on the conflicts that are still very important in North Kivu, Ituri and South Kivu. ”
David Gressly visited the now FARDC base in Semuliki in the Beni area of northern Kivu, where peacekeepers were massacred in 2017. It was handed over to the Congolese army in February last year. It is among the strategies of the UN mission. “We have considered developing five other bases to help the FARDC better secure areas and occupy positions.”
Since 2014 and the conquest of the main ADF strongholds, the Congolese armed forces have continued to lose and regain ground according to the offensives and their supply. They are particularly vulnerable in the camps, hitherto insecure settlements where their wives and children also live.
.
