DR Congo Wants UN Mission to Leave in 2020: Foreign Minister

The Democratic Republic of Congo wants the UN mission to leave the country in 2020, Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu said Tuesday, following a UN Security Council vote last week extending the peacekeepers’ mandate for another year. “We have let the Security Council know that the current mandate is considered to be the penultimate one, before the force leaves our county definitively after 20 years,” She Okitundu told a press conference in the capital Kinshasa. The United Nations has warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo, with at least 13.1 million Congolese in need of aid, including 7.7 million who are severely food insecure. The Security Council on Tuesday tasked its huge peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo with helping to prepare elections meant to end President Joseph Kabila’s rule.