UN security council to visit great Lakes region

The UN Security Council members will visit the Great Lakes Region of Africa to showcase their support and commitment for a UN-brokered peace accord for the strife-torn area, a UN spokesman told reporters here on Thursday. "The 15 members of the Security Council will depart New York this afternoon on a trip to the Great Lakes Region of Africa. The delegation will travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( DRC), Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia," said Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, at the daily briefing. "One of the aims of this visit is to reiterate the Security Council's support for the implementation of the commitments under the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region," Nesirky said. According to Nesirky, on its way to Africa, the delegation will stop in Brussels, where it will meet with the Political and Security Committee of the European Union. On their first stop within Africa, the Council members will meet in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC, with senior government officials, including President Joseph Kabila. "On Sunday, it will depart to Goma in the eastern part of the DRC, where members of the delegation will meet civil society representatives and visit a camp for internally displaced people," said the spokesman. "Then, they will travel to Kigali, Rwanda." After meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, the delegation will travel to Entebbe, a major town in central Uganda, to meet with President Yoweri Mseeveni before heading to their last stop. "The last leg of the visit to the Great Lakes region will be Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the Security Council delegation will meet with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and with the Peace and Security Council of the African Union," said Nesirky. The delegation will return to New York on Oct. 9, he added. The Framework was adopted in February in Addis Ababa in the presence of the UN chief, with the support of the government of DRC along with 10 other African nations and four international organizations, and aims to end the cycles of conflict and crisis in the eastern DRC and to build peace in the long-troubled region. Over the past year, the M23, a rebel military group based in eastern DRC, had joined other armed groups and clashed repeatedly with the DRC national forces (FARDC). The fighting resumed in August, this time dragging in a group of Ugandan-based rebels. According to UN figures, the clashes displaced more than 100, 000 people, exacerbating the region's ongoing humanitarian crisis, which has seen 2.6 million people displaced internally and 6.4 million in need of food and emergency aid.