Kenyan President William Ruto says his country is sending more than 900 military personnel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to join a new regional force tasked with trying to calm deadly tensions fuelled by armed groups. Ruto on Wednesday called the mission “necessary and urgent” for regional security and said he and the DRC’s president had agreed on how Kenyan forces would work with Congolese and other forces on disarming rebels and peacekeeping in the country’s troubled east. The Kenyan forces will be based in Goma, eastern DRC’s largest city. The East African Community regional force, agreed upon by heads of state in June and led by a Kenyan commander, also has two battalions from Uganda, two from Burundi and one from South Sudan.
