{"id":21247,"date":"2025-12-17T15:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/m23-still-in-seized-drc-town-despite-withdrawal-pledge\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:22","slug":"m23-still-in-seized-drc-town-despite-withdrawal-pledge","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/m23-still-in-seized-drc-town-despite-withdrawal-pledge\/","title":{"rendered":"M23 still in seized DRC town despite withdrawal pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rwanda backed M23 rebels have not withdrawn from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Uvira despite an announcement earlier this week that they would pull back, residents told\u00a0<em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>M23 Spokesperson Willy Ngoma told\u00a0<em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>on Wednesday that &#8220;we are ready to leave (Uvira), but our conditions have to be reviewed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ngoma\u00a0added that the citizens of Uvira needed protecting and it should be occupied by a neutral force.<\/p>\n<p>The rebels had said on Monday they would withdraw to help efforts by\u00a0United States (US) President Donald Trump&#8217;s\u00a0administration and Qatar to mediate peace in the long-running war between the rebels and government forces in DRC.<\/p>\n<p>M23 entered Uvira, near the Burundi border, earlier this month, less than a week after the\u00a0Presidents\u00a0of DRC and Rwanda met\u00a0with Trump\u00a0in Washington to reaffirm their commitment to the Washington Accords peace agreement.<\/p>\n<p>The US has criticised seizure of the town as a threat to mediation efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dzFEsdq0nck?si=kOm5yU4fONf0XLG4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14257,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-21247","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Rwanda backed M23 rebels have not withdrawn from DRC","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24990,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21247\/revisions\/24990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}