A cessation of hostilities in the decade-old conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared in November by African leaders in the Angolan capital of Luanda.
The M23 rebel group, composed primarily of fighters from the country’s persecuted Tutsi ethnic minority, has been fighting the Congolese army since 2012. The group was considered defeated in 2013, but resurfaced a year ago.
Two days after last month’s ceasefire, fighting resumed, indicating that the Luanda summit had failed to resolve the crisis. In fact, the summit’s entire set-up underlined the limits of the international community’s approach to DRC’s challenges – notably the way it overlooks the persecution of ethnic minorities and Indigenous people dating back to the colonial era.
