<img src='https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-02-08/Rwandan-and-DRC-leaders-to-meet-over-eastern-DRC-conflict-1APfodUr9q8/img/c9c935d676414b3e872963549f91ab2b/c9c935d676414b3e872963549f91ab2b.png' alt='Members of the Congolese Red Cross and volunteers bury victims of the recent conflict in a cemetery in Goma, DRC, February 4, 2025. /CFP'
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), were set to join talks in Tanzania on Saturday as regional leaders convened in a bid to defuse the conflict in the DRC.
The March 23 Movement (M23) armed group, which the DRC accuses Rwanda of backing, has rapidly seized swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC in an offensive that has left thousands dead and displaced vast numbers.
The group took the strategic city of Goma last week and is pushing into the neighboring South Kivu province in the latest episode of decades-long turmoil in the region.
Kagame arrived for the summit in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam, that brought together the eight countries of the East African Community and 16-member South African Development Community.
However, the DRC presidency confirmed Friday that Tshisekedi would only attend via video call.
The presidents of Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe were among those present as the summit began.
Since the M23 re-emerged in 2021, peace talks hosted by either Angola and Kenya have failed and multiple ceasefires collapsed.
Rwanda, which denies military support for the M23 accuses the DRC of sheltering the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
(With input from AFP)