Harare, (New Ziana) –Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are set to hold an extra ordinary summit in Harare on Friday to discuss the deteriorating security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The M23 rebels killed 13 South African military personnel on peacekeeping duties in the DRC in a battle to take over the city of Goma.
SADC has deployed military personnel under the auspices of the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC) with South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania contributing troops.
The SAMDRC is running alongside the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).
On Thursday SADC secretary general Elias Magosi paid a courtesy call on Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa who is the SADC chairperson, at the State House in Harare to brief him on preparations for the extra ordinary summit.
Magosi, however, refused to give details of his meeting with President Mnangagwa and said these will be revealed in a communique to be issued at the end of the summit on Friday.
The summit is expected to get a report on the situation in eastern DRC from the SADC Troika, the organ on peace and security chaired by Tanzanian President, Samia Suluhu.
The summit, scheduled for the New Parliament Building in Mt Hampden, a few kilometers outside Harare, is the second such meeting.
The first extra-ordinary summit on the eastern DRC security situation was again held in Harare last December. Then, the SADC leaders decided to extend SMIDRC by another year in the hope of achieving peace in the resource-rich DRC.
The latest M23 offensive has seen it take control of the eastern DRC capital Goma amid fears of a major humanitarian crisis in the city, whose health facilities are overwhelmed by casualties and bodies lying on the streets while thousands have fled multiple conflict zones, according to the United Nations Commission for Refugees.
This has in turn sparked protests in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, with protesters targeting the embassies of neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda that Kinshasa accuse of supporting the M23 rebels, as well as those of France, Belgium and the United States.
Rwanda has denied accusations of its soldiers actively fighting alongside the M23 rebels in eastern DRC.
New Ziana