The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) will completely withdraw from the country by December.

Bintou Keita, the head of MONUSCO said at a media briefing in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on Saturday, January 13, that after 25 years of presence, "MONUSCO will definitively leave the DRC no later than the end of 2024.”

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She announced that the withdrawal which will take place in three phases will see the first phase, with about 2,000 UN troops, leave South Kivu by the end of April.

In November 2023, the United Nations and the DR Congo government signed an agreement meant to kick-start the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country. At the time, MONUSCO said the plan, signed in Kinshasa by Keita and DR Congo’s Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula, would ensure an "accelerated, progressive, orderly and responsible withdrawal” of the UN troops.

The Congolese government called for the UN mission to leave the country, saying it had failed to protect civilians from armed groups.

More than 200 armed groups, including the Rwandan genocidal militia, FDLR, formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from Uganda, are active in restive eastern areas such as North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces.

As of February 2023, MONUSCO had 17,753 personnel, including over 12,000 troops and some 1,600 police officers.