The March 23 Movement (M23 rebels) launched an uprising in April 2012 and they went on to seize Goma- one of the provincial capitals in Democratic Republic of Congo.

In November 2012, the M23 rebel fighters left GOMA following a strong international pressure and they were defeated by the DR Congo army and a UN intervention brigade in 2013. On Sunday, a high-powered group of special envoys to the Democratic Republic of Congo called for “the total surrender of all the fighters and ranking officers” of a different rebel groups active in the Kivu including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Some FDLR fighters are accused of taking part in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when Hutu troops and militias massacred an estimated 800,000 people. Last week over 100 FDLR rebels’ mainly young men surrendered and handed in their guns to DR Congo Government and to the UN soldiers in Kivu.

Ends