Kenya Defence Forces First Batch Leaves For the Democratic Republic of Congo. This comes after they were commissioned by President William Ruto in presence of Deputy President Rigathi GaRC Pchagua and the National Security Advisor to the President, Ambassador Dr Monica Juma at the Embakasi Garrison Military Base.
Kenya Defence Forces will now join a regional force referred to as East African Community Regional Force which is mandated to bring peace to the eastern DRC region.
East African Countries sending their soldiers to DRC will bear their own cost. Kenya is estimated to spend approximately 4 billion annually to sustain soldiers in the DRC peacekeeping mission.
This comes a few hours to retired President Uhuru Kenyatta’s visit to DRC on Sunday for 48 hours. President Uhuru Kenyatta emeritus will hold talks with DRC president Tshesekedi on security status in the Eastern DRC where new fights had emerged between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese Army (FARDC).
Nairobi peace talks are also set to commence in November and will be led by the Eastern Africa mediator, President Uhuru Kenyatta emeritus, who also dupes as African peace envoy.
The peace talks resume as DRC blames Rwanda for sponsoring and equipping the M23 rebel group a claim that Rwanda has distanced itself from. A few days ago a Congolese Military Jet flew to Rwanda airport with no clearance from Rwanda authorities and later flew back.
DRC is yet to reply to provocation concerns by Rwanda authorities but instead, they have also exiled the Rwanda ambassador to DRC.
