Former President Uhuru Kenyatta is among dignitaries at State House, Nairobi, today for a high-level meeting convened to address the security crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Kenyatta is attending in his capacity as one of five eminent facilitators appointed by the joint summit of EAC and SADC in February 2025 to help broker peace between the DRC government and M23 rebels, who have seized large parts of the mineral-rich eastern region.
The other AU-appointed peace facilitators include former presidents President Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), South Africa's Kgalema Motlanthe, the Central African Republic's Catherine Samba-Panza, and Ethiopia's Sahle-Work Zewde. It remains unclear whether the other four are attending the Nairobi meeting physically or virtually. Ruto received both his predecessor and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He and Mnangagwa are co-chairing the summit as current chairpersons of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), respectively.
The EAC-SADC initiative is an Africa-led process aimed at restoring peace and stability in the DRC and complements ongoing mediation efforts by the United States and Qatar.
