Burundi’s army officially deployed on Monday morning a contingent to the Ruzizi River Plain, an area of the South Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), announced a DRC army spokesperson.
The announcement of this deployment was made public on Monday morning by Lieutenant Marc Elongo, spokesperson for the DRC’s Armed Forces (FARDC) in the South Kivu province, via a press release in which he stressed that the deployment has been agreed by the heads of state of the Community of East African States (EAC) as part of a joint process to put an end to violence in the eastern DRC.
This Burundian contingent “came within the framework of the pooling of forces advocated by the Heads of State of the EAC”, specified Elongo.
In June, EAC heads of state decided to set up a regional task force to work with the Congolese army to end violence by armed groups in eastern DRC.
“This Task Force under the command of the FARDC has the mission of tracking down all foreign and local armed groups in order to restore the peace promised by the supreme commander of the armed forces of the DRC”, stressed Marc Elongo.
The regional task force will be deployed in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri, in eastern DRC. Enditem
