DR Congo and South Africa plan security pact

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said that he was planning sign a security agreement with South Africa, as militias continue to occupy swathes of turbulent eastern Congo.

In a news conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Congolese president explained that the accord could take the form of a mutual-defence pact. Tshisekedi highlighted the mutual defence pact of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a potential model, without going into details. 

Both countries are members of the 16-nation SADC. Ramaphosa also pledged to keep helping the DRC to fight insecurity and poverty. Armed groups have plagued much of the eastern DRC for three decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and early 2000s.