Livingston: Defense experts from the Angolan Ministry of Defense are participating in the extraordinary meeting of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)'s specialized committee, which began Thursday in Livingston, Zambia. The meeting aims to discuss maintaining the agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the M23, as well as the current security and humanitarian situation in the DRC and its regional implications.

According to Angola Press News Agency, the experts' meeting, which precedes the meeting of the ICGLR member countries' defense ministers, will also analyze the implementation of the Washington (USA) and Doha (Qatar) peace agreements in detail. On the first day of the two-day meeting, the experts discussed the escalating violence in the DRC, which has affected more than seven million people and caused around 500,000 refugees to flee to neighboring countries, including Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

The experts recommended creating monitoring and ceasefire mechanisms to allow humanitarian organizations to provide refugees with medical care, food, and drinking water. Meetings of defense experts in the Great Lakes Region are regular events organized by the ICGLR to maintain peace, security, stability, and cooperation and to prepare documents for ministerial meetings.

They also discuss regional conflicts, assess border security between member states, and develop mechanisms to end the war. Representatives from Angola, Zambia, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, and Tanzania were present at this meeting of experts, as were representatives from the United States and Qatar via video conference.