The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has made a decision not to prolong the East African Community's regional force's mandate after its expiration on December, 8, the EAC leaders' stated on Saturday following the summit in Tanzania.
Evaluating the process in the EAC-led security restoration process in the DR Congo, the bloc said it has "noted that the DRC will not extend the mandate of the EAC regional force beyond 8th December 2023."
The leaders directed that the EAC's and Southern African Development Community (SADC) defense forces chiefs would meet before December, 8 "to submit their recommendations on the way forward to the defense ministers for onward transmission to the summit for consideration."
In October, the DRC's minister of communications stated that the government would not extend EAC regional force's mandate since it was not able to resolve the security issues.
The future of the EAC's operation became unclear after DRC's President Felix Tshisekedi criticized the regional force. However, the bloc still made a decision to keep the troops deployed until December.
The EAC deployed its troops for the first time in the violence-plagued Central African country in November 2022 after the reappearance of the M23 rebel group.
M23 is one of the dozens of many militant groups operating in the mineral-rich eastern part of DR Congo. These groups emerged from the regional wars that broke out in the 1990s and 2000s.
The M23 movement, led by the ethnic group Tutsi, has seized parts of the country's eastern North Kivu province since it went to fighting in late 2021 after years of inactivity.
Tutsi is the name of an ethnic group living in Central Africa. In 1994 in Rwanda, they were subjected to genocide by another ethnic group called Hutu that resulted in the death of over a million Tutsi in just over three months time.
The UN estimated that around 450,000 people in North Kivu province have had to leave their homes over the past six weeks, with approximately 200,000 of them being "cut off from aid".
Meanwhile, at Friday's summit, Somalia was admitted to the EAC as the eighth member of the grouping. The accession of this war-torn country will increase the EAC market by more than 300 million people.
However, on the other hand, Somalia's admission into the bloc could herald new security problems for the EAC as the country tries to stop the uprising of the Islamist group Al-Shabaab*.
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other states.