The US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, has said at an emergency meeting of the Security Council that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda must step back from the ‘brink of war’, as violence grows in the DRC’s eastern provinces.
On Monday the US called on Rwanda to withdraw troops and anti-aircraft systems from eastern DRC. Rwanda says its troops are defending Rwandan territory from a ‘dramatic military build-up’ of Congolese troops.
Eastern DRC has recently been embroiled in a fresh wave of violence by the M23 rebel group, which the DRC has claimed is being supported by Rwanda.
[Image: Francisco Anzola – https://www.flickr.com/photos/fran001/32964603443, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90456896]