EU eyes Uganda help to deliver relief supplies to war-torn eastern Congo
European Union Ambassador Jean-Marc Chataigner (left), French Ambassador Bruno Aubert, and North Kivu Governor Lt-Gen Constant Ndima (middle) receive EU humanitarian aid for civilians displaced by fighting between the army and M23 rebels at Goma Airport.
As the Trump-mediated peace deal for eastern Congo wobbles, the European Union is stepping in with a humanitarian approach, negotiating with key players including Uganda’s military – a security linchpin in the conflict-plagued North Kivu and Ituri provinces –to secure supply routes and the region’s main airport to facilitate the delivery of relief supplies.
On Monday, Brussels Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region Johan Borgstam met with Uganda’s military leader Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba to discuss the security and humanitarian situation in the troubled mineral-rich eastern Congo.
At the heart of the meeting, attended by the EU Head of Delegation Jan Sadek, was the discussion of increasing the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) role in Ituri and North Kivu, to improve humanitarian access. The Ugandan army has more than 6,000 troops deployed in the area.
In a statement, the army said Gen Kainerugaba and his guest discussed the role of UPDF’s external operations in the DRC, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.
Borgstam, who previously met with UPDF’s Chief of Land Forces Lt-Gen Kayanja Muhanga and the commanders of Ugandan troops in Congo under the joint Operation Shujaa with Congolese forces since November 2021, believes Kampala is crucial to resolving the situation in eastern Congo.
“I believe that for sustainable solutions that can truly secure peace and stability in the region, it’s incredibly important that Uganda and Burundi are also part of the work towards the solutions,” Borgstam said in Kampala.
In August, while reacting to the Rwanda and Congo peace deal signed in Washington DC, and the Doha process, Gen Kainerugaba took to X, expressing Uganda’s significance – as one of the major actors in the region – in any deal seeking to resolve the crisis in eastern Congo.
“If war breaks out again in Eastern DRC, we will not hesitate for a minute to secure our interests as a country. Not involving the region (i.e. EAC) in the Doha process was a mistake,” he wrote.
Indeed, last month, the EU special envoy concluded missions to the region’s other actor Burundi, as well as to the antagonists Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Analysts say these efforts highlight Brussels’ move to shed the label its own Parliament cast on the bloc in February, in a strong resolution that condemned the EU’s inaction in the region where the Rwanda-backed M23 were committing serious war crimes.
This is amid global actors pushing their interest in Congo, with the US mediating a peace deal to end the war between the M23 rebel group and the Kinshasa government, in exchange for access to minerals, while China also reportedly monitors how the conflict’s dynamics affect mineral trade.
Brussels has since pledged €9 million ($10.43 million) in humanitarian aid to DRC, announced last month by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, to respond to the tragic humanitarian needs in the country. This brings the total of EU humanitarian assistance to the Great Lakes Region for 2025 to €129 million ($149.50million).
This is crucial as a conflict-fuelled humanitarian crisis continues to escalate in eastern Congo, despite a US-brokered peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda on June 27, and a ceasefire truce signed in Doha, Qatar last month, between Kinshasa and the M23 rebels.
Recently, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported a worsening hunger crisis due to the fighting between M23 and Congolese government forces that has seen eastern Congo become the world’s largest crisis for displaced persons. According to WFP, a staggering 5.2 million people have been displaced, 1.6 million of them just this year.
Amid funding cuts and closed supply routes supplies are dwindling and forcing relief agencies such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and WFP to cut back on programmes as they run out of medical and food assistance.
In light of this situation, the EU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region views the UPDF as a partner that can multitask on its main mission in the DRC – hunting down Islamic State-affiliate the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists – to also guarantee humanitarian access.
“I encouraged the UPDF to do what it can to secure humanitarian access, to work closely with the humanitarian actors, and also work with Monusco and to do what they can,” said Borgstam, on his fifth visit to Uganda since his appointment as Great Lakes Region special envoy in September 2024.
“It is very important to look at the humanitarian situation also in a military-political perspective,” he added, explaining that funding cuts for humanitarian aid have security and political consequences for all actors when people in refugee and displaced camps have no access to basics.
Apparently, Gen Kainerugaba, Lt-Gen Muhanga and the field commanders in Beni, North Kivu, all indicated that securing supply routes and working with humanitarian actors is an integrated part of their mission in Ituri and North Kivu.
“They don’t see engaging with humanitarian partners or others as something that would force them to step back from their military objectives. They are highly professional and understand the negative security impact of a humanitarian situation that gets out of hand,” the EU envoy said.
Borgstam’s visit comes barely a fortnight after French President Emmanuel Macron’s call to reopen Goma Airport, with a pledge of €1.5 billion for humanitarian aid, which the M23 rejected and labelled untimely.
