Luanda –The situation in the Great Lakes region was assessed Monday, in Luanda, during an audience in which the Angolan President, João Lourenço, received the special envoy of the United Nations (UN), Huang Xia.
The official, who is the UN Secretary General special envoy for the Great Lakes region, stated that the audience also served to get President Lourenço´s understanding of the situation in the region.
Talking to the press at the end of the meeting, Huang Xia, announced that on 26 October he will make a statement on the situation in the Great Lakes region at the UN headquarters in New York City, United States of America (USA).
For the UN representative, the situation in the region requires caution, so he urged for the need of joint efforts among the member states, in order to reverse the prevailing crisis there.
The senior UN official revealed that he congratulated President João Lourenço on his re-election and stressed the importance that this represents for the region.
He also highlighted the fact that in the last ten years, Angola played an important role in the pacification process of the Great Lakes Region particularly, and in Africa in general.
The Great Lakes Region tension rose at the beginning of this year between the neighbouring countries of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In March this year, fighting began between the DRC and the 23 March Movement (M23), which according to Kinshasa is supported by the neighbouring country.
The fighting between DRC and the neighbouring countries of Rwanda and Uganda is old.
Angola is the Chairman of the International Conference on Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), so it has multiplied initiatives to pacify the region.
The Head of State, João Lourenço, as the ICGLR Chairman, was appointed by the African Union to mediate the conflict.
ICGLR was created with the objective to resolve peace and security issues after political turnmoils that marked the region in 1994.
The ICGLR member countries are Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).
