The UN Human Rights Council will later today decide whether to launch an international investigation into alleged violations and abuses committed as deadly clashes gripped the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
DR Congo requested the urgent meeting of the UN’s top rights body to discuss escalating fighting by the armed group M23 in North and South Kivu provinces and drew up a draft resolution that would set up the probe.
Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told newsmen in Geneva, Switzerland that it will be an occasion for his country to present to the world what is going on and to ask the world to act, to stop what is going on in DRC.
Last week, M23 fighters seized Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, a mineral-rich region in eastern DRC that has been blighted by war for over three decades.
The DRC’s Foreign Trade Minister, Julien Paluku, stressed the urgency of international action, blaming Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the serious violations being committed.
Rwanda’s President Kagame has vehemently denied backing the M23 rebels.
M23’s lightning offensive against Goma was a major escalation after more than three years of fighting.
The battle for Goma killed at least 2,900 people, the UN said on Wednesday, as the fighters launched a new offensive in South Kivu.
The support of more than a third of the Human Rights Council’s 47 member states is required to convene a special session, and 29 backed the DRC’s call, along with 22 observer states.
