Ugandan troops under the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) have completed their exit from eastern DR Congo following the expiry of the Force mandate on December 8, the regional body announced on December 14.

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The East African Community Regional Force started to exit troops from eastern DR Congo in early December, with the first group – Kenyan troops – leaving Goma International Airport on December 3, after one year of deployment. A meeting of EAC army chiefs held in Arusha, Tanzania, on December 6, adopted the regional force’s exit plan.

The troops’ exit came after Kinshasa refused to renew their mandate, a decision that was communicated to the EAC Summit earlier on November 24.

The Regional Force’s first force commander Maj Gen Jeff Nyagah resigned, in April, citing threats to his security. Kinshasa wanted the regional force to fight the M23, which was not part of the latter&039;s operational mandate.

The Regional Force will complete its withdrawal on January 7. It has announced that it will hand over its positions over to troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which are expected in eastern DR Congo by the end of December.

The EAC Regional Force – with troops from Kenya, Burundi, Uganda, and South Sudan – was deployed to eastern DR Congo in November 2022 to support peace efforts and especially observe the withdrawal of the M23 rebels from positions they had captured from the Congolese army in North Kivu Province.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels – allegations Kigali dismisses, clarifying that the rebellion is an internal Congolese issue.

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Eastern DR Congo is home to more than 130 local and foreign armed groups, including Rwanda’s FDLR, a genocidal outfit formed in mid-2000 by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The FDLR was founded during a May 2000 meeting held in Lubumbashi, the second-largest city in DR Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia.

Eastern DR Congo has been volatile for nearly three decades. Multiple interventions, including by the UN’s longest and largest peacekeeping missions, MONUSCO, failed to end the violence. In August, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres communicated to the Security Council about the planned withdrawal of the MONUSCO.

Guterres said MONUSCO was entering "its final phase” in DR Congo. According to a plan set out in his report, the Mission would begin "an accelerated withdrawal,” even though the security and humanitarian situation is "deteriorating sharply.”

Experts say the planned withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) will only mark the force’s "monumental failure.”