The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which groups 16 states, said in mid-March it had terminated the mandate of its mission and would begin a phased withdrawal of its force, known as SAMIDRC, from DRC.
The force was sent to assist Kinshasa's fight against rebel groups in DRC's eastern borderlands in December 2023, prompting protests by the Rwandan government, who said the deployment would aggravate the conflict.
Many of SAMIDRC's troops, thought to number several hundred, sought shelter in United Nations peacekeeping bases after Goma, eastern Congo's largest city, fell to Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in February.
A witness said the Rwandan army and military police escorted some 20 vehicles over the border into the Rwandan town of Gisenyi on Tuesday.
The convoy carried what appeared to be military equipment along with Tanzanian and South African soldiers, the witness said.
An ambulance within the convoy had SAMIDRC signage on it, and the drivers told bystanders the vehicles were going to Tanzania, the witness said.
An M23 source said only half of the SAMIDRC force in Goma left Congo on Tuesday. The remainder would follow afterwards, he said.
M23 have seized eastern DRC's two biggest cities since January in an escalation of a long-running conflict rooted in the spillover into Congo of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo's vast mineral resources.
Their offensive has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
Rwanda denies UN allegations that it backs the M23 with arms and troops, saying its forces are acting in self-defence against DRC's army and allied militias.
In March 2024 Rwanda asked the African Union and its partners not to support SAMIDRC, accusing the force of fighting alongside a Congolese government coalition that included fighters linked to the Rwanda genocide.
Mediation efforts, most recently by Angola and Qatar, have so far failed to end the conflict, although Congo and Rwanda vowed to come up with a draft peace deal by May 2 in an agreement signed in Washington last Friday
--Reuters--
