Tshisekedi to join regional summit on eastern Congo conflict

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(Reuters) -Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi will take part in a joint summit of Eastern and Southern African leaders starting on Friday to discuss the conflict in its east, where Rwandan-backed rebels are seizing more territory.

The high-stakes summit in Tanzania could bring together Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who is accused by Congo, the United Nations and other Western partners of arming and supporting the rebels. Rwanda has consistently denied these allegations.

A presidential spokesperson told Reuters Tshisekedi would take part in the two-day joint summit, which Kagame is also participating in, without specifying whether he would fly to Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam or attend virtually.

The situation is at a “pivotal moment” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier, saying the conflict “risks engulfing the entire region” and urging the parties to work together for peace.

The rebels who seized Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo, last week, on Wednesday took another mining town in the South Kivu province in a push towards the provincial capital Bukavu, violating a unilateral ceasefire they had declared.

Reports of rebel advance towards Bukavu on Thursday sparked panic in several towns and villages including in Bukavu, where the Catholic university suspended academic activities scheduled for Friday, a statement said.

Meanwhile, in a signal of their intention to govern areas they have seized, the rebels gathered hundreds of people in a stadium in Goma, where they presented new administrators they have appointed and urged residents to return to work and school.

Guterres said hundreds of thousands of people are on the move in Goma, with many of the previous sites hosting displaced people north of the city now looted, destroyed or abandoned.

“Healthcare facilities are overwhelmed. And other basic services – including schools, water, electricity, phone lines and the internet – are severely limited,” he added.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday estimated that at least 2,800 people died in Goma.

Congo will present a motion to the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking an investigation into what it called “mass violations” of rights in the city of Goma, its envoy told reporters on Thursday.

The presidents of Congo and Rwanda were supposed to meet in December in Angola and sign a peace agreement but the meeting was cancelled. Both parties blamed each other for failed talks as tensions escalated.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud are also expected to attend the summit on February 7-8.

(Reporting by Congo Newsroom, Sonia Rolley in Paris, Emma Farge in Geneva and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian and Bate FelixEditing by Philippa Fletcher)