At least 14 South African troops have been killed in the fighting in DR Congo
Southern African leaders have announced they will pull their troops out of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where they have been helping the government fight rebel forces.
The troops were sent two years ago to support the Congolese army fight the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels, which has seized control of large parts of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo this year.
At least 19 soldiers from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania were killed when the M23 captured the region’s biggest city, Goma, in January.
Thousands of people have been killed during the fighting and hundreds of thousands left without shelter after fleeing their homes.
The decision to start a “phased withdrawal” from DR Congo was made during a virtual summit of the 16-member Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, on Thursday.
The Sadc leaders said that even though the troops would be withdrawn from DR Congo, the bloc would continue to “support interventions aimed at bringing lasting peace”.
No reason was given.
Sadc called for a diplomatic and political solution to the conflict.
Previous efforts to bring peace to DR Congo have not been successful.
This was Sadc’s third emergency summit on DR Congo in recent months.
It is unclear how many Sadc troops are in DR Congo, but 5,000 troops were due to be sent.
South Africa, which leads the mission, was to deploy 2,900 troops and the rest shared between Malawi and Tanzania.
