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NAIROBI, April 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday hosted Presidents Félix Tshisekedi of DR Congo, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Evariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi for talks on the insecurity caused by militia groups in the region and especially eastern DR Congo.
Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr Vincent Biruta, represented President Paul Kagame.
According to reports, Tshisekedi was the first of the visiting leaders to arrive in Nairobi, earlier on Wednesday, for the Mini-Summit devoted to peace and security in the East African Community. His country became the seventh member of the EAC on March 29 when the EAC Heads of State admitted it.
The meeting in the Kenyan capital comes at the time when Kenya, through its embassy in Kinshasa, suspended their nationals’ operation along Mahagi-Bunia-Kisangani road ‘until proper security measures are put in place.’
In a letter dated April 17, Peter Owiti, the head of Chancery and Deputy Head of Mission in Kenya’s Embassy in Kinshasa said two Kenyan drivers were kidnapped “by a group of armed persons suspected to be members of one of the rebel groups” on April 15.
The diplomat noted that the incident occurred at around 16:00 hours at Kommanda market, along the Bunia-Mombasa road in Ituri Province.
The Embassy of Kenya in Kinshasa issued a notice to the Kenyan business community, particularly truck owners and truck drivers, to immediately suspend their operations along the Mahagi-Bunia-Kisangani route until proper security measures are put in place.
Uganda and DR Congo are currently conducting joint military operations in eastern DR Congo against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels who originated from Uganda.
Amid deteriorating security in the eastern part of the DR Congo, Bintou Keita, who heads MONUSCO, recently called for a comprehensive political strategy to address the structural causes of the conflicts.
In a briefing to the Security Council, she said that only three months into this year, nearly 2,300 civilian deaths were recorded in the country’s eastern provinces.
“This is proof of the inherent limits of only having security operations to resolve conflicts,” she said.
Keita said the security situation in the country’s east deteriorated despite the joint military operations against armed groups by the Congolese military (FARDC), which was joined by the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
She said civilian losses and displacement of populations have increased because of bloody reprisals by ADF militants. — NNN-AGENCIES
