the UN Human Rights Chief has warned that the conflict in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo risks spreading and the worst violence May yet be to come vulka Turk was speaking at an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Rwandan backed M23 Fighters took the city of GMA last week there are reports of widespread human rights abuses including sexual violence and the recruitment of child soldiers let's speak now to our Africa correspondent Barbara PL user who's in Nairobi Barbara hello to you um there have been hopes that the presidents of the respective
countries uh DRC and and Rwanda could get together and have talks that might lead to an end to this conflict is there any further development on that yes there is a special Summit planned for tomorrow Saturday it's organized by two African Regional groupings the East African Community and the southern African Community uh and both leaders have said they will attend so if they both go in person that would be quite a moment because it's been very hard to get them around the same table in the past months um but we're not clear whether the congales
leader will attend uh in person or whether he'll attend virtually uh and there have already been two emergency Summits one by the East African Community and one by the southern African one and now they're bringing their forces together to again try to address this conflict because the concern is growing uh that it is going to escalate and there is a concern that it escalates beyond the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo not to mention the the great damage it has already done the people who've been killed the interruption to Services the humanitarian crisis uh
so there is pressure from the uh from the concerns of the region also you heard that you mentioned the the UN official there at the Human Rights Council the UN Secretary General they' all got this same warning that things could get much worse um whether that leads to some kind of resolution seems to me unlikely given the Dynamics but maybe the hope is that there could be a ceasefire and the talks could continue uh yeah on the substance that the two leaders might get into whether they attend in person or or virtually I mean what
would be the starting point do you think for those discussions in terms of trying to actually at least reach a ceasefire yeah that's a good question because they're very far apart so the rwandans um which so the the Democratic Republic of Congo accuses Rwanda of backing these Rebels saying that it has invaded the country with thousands of its troops to provide them military support and weapons in fact that is the there is evidence for that in a un report that Rwanda is actively engaged although the rwandans uh have never admitted that that's the case what
they say is that they are doing whatever it takes to protect their border but what their position is is that this is a congales problem this is a congales Civil War uh and they need to talk to each other the congales government needs to talk to the rebels that is something that it has some support for from some African countries the congales on the other hand are absolutely against that they say this isn't about the rebels it's not about the M23 Rebels those are the puppets we want to speak essentially to the Puppet Master is
is how you might want to phrase it they haven't used that word but they they they don't want to be speaking to a force that they feel is not really directing things on the ground they've also designated them as terrorists so I don't know if you can bring those two things together what the congales have said is that what they're going to be asking for at this meeting is uh sanctions against Rwanda a call for all unwanted foreign forces to leave and for a formal ceasefire so it's unclear how you might get to that ceasefire
um certainly it's it's not clear at all that there could be a deeper resolution behind that now but I think the concern right now is to stop the advance of the rebels and to stop the violence long enough to try to H get some talks going and briefly Barbara uh is the rebel group The M23 Fighters uh are they saying anything they have not really been talking about the summit no they they are not involved in the um in the in the peace process as I said the congales don't accept them as an interlocutor what
they have been saying is about their uh military Advance they have taken over GMA they have started to put an Administration in place they are continuing to advance further south and the leadership says and it's a rebel alliance actually of which the M23 is a part they say we want to go all the way to kinasa so we want to overthrow the congales government okay Barbara thank you very much Barbara PL show in Nairobi
