Rwanda to allow SADC troops to evacuate Goma

Rwanda has agreed to allow troops deployed by the Southern Africa bloc to fight rebels in eastern DRC to evacuate from the rebel-held city of Goma through its territory to Tanzania, three diplomatic sources said on Friday. According to TimesLIVE, the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) said in mid-March it had terminated the mandate and would begin a phased withdrawal of its force, known as SAMIDRC, from DRC. The three diplomats, with knowledge of the ongoing talks between Rwanda and SADC, confirmed that Rwanda had accepted a request for the force's troops to pass through the country by land. Two of the diplomats added they have been informed that the regional force's weapons will be sealed for security reasons but will leave Rwandan territory with the troops. There was no immediate response from SADC nor from spokespeople for the DRC and Rwandan Governments. General Rudzani Maphwanya, the head of the SANDF, said on SABC television on Thursday that a technical team was in Tanzania working on the finer details of their troop withdrawal. SAMIDRC was sent to assist Kinshasa's fight against rebel groups in DRC's war-ravaged eastern borderlands in December 2023. M23 have seized east DRC's two biggest cities since January in an escalation of a long-running conflict rooted in the spillover into DRC of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo's vast mineral resources.

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