DRC: a contingent of the Burundian army deployed in South Kivu

Burundian army soldiers deployed.

(photo illustration) AFP - CARL DE SOUZA

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A contingent of the Burundian army officially entered Congolese soil on Monday 15 August.

According to the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, these soldiers will deploy in the Sokola 2 South operational zone, to track down the Congolese and foreign armed groups present.

The Congolese army specifies that it is within the framework of the pooling of forces, decided by the heads of state of the East African Community. 

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With our correspondent in Kinshasa,

It was around one o'clock in the morning, on the night of Sunday August 14 to Monday August 15, that Burundian soldiers arrived at the Luberezi instruction center, about a hundred kilometers from Bukavu, the capital of the province of South Kivu.

Neither the duration of their presence nor their number have been communicated.

“ 

 ,” a military official told RFI.

The date of the official start of operations has also not been revealed.

It will be communicated in the coming days, report military sources.

We know, at this stage, that these soldiers will mainly be deployed in the south of the province of South Kivu.

In this area, coalitions of

armed groups , on the one hand, and Twirwaneho and Gumino armed groups, on the other, fight and engage in series of reprisals, killing civilians, looting livestock and destroying several other properties.

There are also Burundian groups like RED-Tabara and FNL.

According to the United Nations group of experts on the DRC, members of the Burundi National Defense Force (FDN) and the Imbonerakure, young members of the youth league of the ruling party in Burundi, had already been leading for several months incursions into the territories of Fizi and Uvira, in order to prevent RED-Tabara from carrying out operations on Burundian territory.

► To read also: DRC: Burundian soldiers and militiamen deployed in the east of the country, according to an NGO

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