President Cyril Ramaphosa received by President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço in Luanda, Angola Image Credits : GCIS

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met Angolan counterpart João Lourenço and discussed the conflict situation in the Democratic Republic Republic of Congo.

Ramaphosa concluded his working visit to Luanda on Thursday where the two leaders also discussed bilateral relations between the two countries.

“They also discussed the current political and security challenges in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),” South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reported.

Angola, the current chair of the economic bloc Southern African Development Community (SADC) is facilitating the talks between stakeholders in the Great Lakes region to address the conflict in the DRC.

It announced last week that Rwanda and DRC have put a temporary halt in the conflict between the Congolese army and Rwandan-backed M23 rebel groups in the eastern Congo’s North Kivu province, effective from August 4.

South Africa and Angola are both part of the SADC military contingent deployed in the Eastern part of the DRC to ensure peace and security in that region.

Eastern DRC has been torn by decades of fighting between government forces and more than 120 armed groups, often involving bombs targeting civilians as the militias seek a share of the region’s gold and other resources.

Kinshasa has long accused Kigali of backing the Tutsi-led rebel group, allegations proven to be of substance by the United Nations, United States and other powers, but which Rwanda denies.

In July, a UN investigation revealed that some 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside the M23 rebels, alleged President Paul Kagame’s “de facto control” of the rebels’ operations.

The investigation stated that Kigali’s military interventions and operations in the Nyiragongo, Rutshuru, and Masisi territories in North Kivu “were critical to the impressive territorial expansion achieved by the M23 between January and March 2024.

The report’s researchers estimated that at the time of writing the paper in April, the number of Rwandan troops were “matching if not surpassing” the number of M23 soldiers, thought to be at around 3,000.