- A force from East Africa was also recently dispatched to the region.
- According to the UN, the war displaced 300,000 people last month.
- The humanitarian catastrophe precipitated by the violence.
Angola says it will send a military unit to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo after a truce mediated by Angola failed to end the conflict.
Both parties in the war, M23 rebels, and government troops have accused one other of violating the truce, which went into effect on Tuesday.
A force from East Africa was also recently dispatched to the region, which is rich in minerals and home to dozens of militias.
According to the UN, the war displaced 300,000 people last month.
This occurred in North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda and Uganda and is a fertile and mountainous terrain that competing factions have long pillaged.
The humanitarian catastrophe precipitated by the violence, which was still underway on Friday, is causing growing worry.
Fly in aid
According to humanitarian organizations, the European Union has just begun an operation to fly in aid to the regional capital, Goma.
According to a statement issued by the Angolan president’s office, the soldiers would be deployed to help control territories previously held by the M23 rebel group and to protect ceasefire monitors.
Kenyan soldiers from the East African Community Regional Force have also been sent to these locations.
Only hours earlier, the rebels, who are generally thought to be backed by Rwanda, announced their intention to retreat from many occupied communities.
The entry of Angolan troops to assist in the war against the rebels will be welcomed by the Congolese authorities.
But, there is a risk that this will escalate into a larger international confrontation.
More than two decades ago, soldiers from at least eight African countries waged a conflict in eastern DR Congo dubbed “Africa’s world war,” which inflicted enormous misery among the civilian population.
For many years, Rwanda has chastised Congolese authorities for failing to disarm Hutu insurgents, some of whom are tied to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
It denies supporting the M23, which has seized significant swaths of land in the last year and is marching on Goma.
M23 fighters conquered vast portions of North Kivu a decade ago, but were finally routed by UN and regional troops and disarmed as part of a peace settlement.
They began regrouping early last year.
Largely made up of Congolese army deserters, they first took up arms in 2009 accusing the government of marginalizing the country’s ethnic Tutsi minority and failing to honor previous peace accords.
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