UN security council team arrives in DR Congo as rebel attacks advances.
A UN Security Council delegation arrived in DR Congo on Thursday for a three-day visit, the world body said, as heavy fighting with M23 rebels continued in the eastern region.
The Tutsi-led group has captured large areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in North Kivu province since they took up arms again at the end of 2021.
M23 fighters have also advanced in recent days, threatening to cut off all roads to Goma, a city of more than a million people on the Rwandan border.
The delegation was supposed to meet with President Felix Tshisekedi before heading to Goma on Saturday.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUSCO, has said the purpose of the council’s visit is to assess the security and humanitarian situation in North Kivu.
“We are here to support the action of MONUSCO, to remind us that it is part of the solution to find peace,” said the United Nations ambassador of Gabon Michel Xavier Biang when he arrived in Kinshasa.
The peacekeeping force is one of the largest and most expensive United Nations missions in the world, with more than 16,000 uniformed personnel.
Residents accuse him of failing to deal with dozens of armed groups operating in eastern DRC, including the M23 rebels.
Several regional efforts aimed at resolving the conflict have failed.
A ceasefire agreement brokered by Angola that had come into effect on Tuesday broke down the same day.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres had asked the rebels to respect the agreement.
At the end of last week, French President Emmanuel Macron also threatened sanctions against parties that fail to respect the ceasefire agreement.
The DRC government accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 group.
Experts from the United Nations, the United States and several Western countries have also concluded that Rwanda supports the group, although Kigali has denied this.
Fighting between the DRC army and M23 has caused approximately 800,000 people to flee their homes.
