The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, assured this Sunday that the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Monusco, would be willing to supervise compliance with a possible ceasefire in the country’s conflict-ridden east.

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In a press conference in the city of Beni, in the northeastern province of North Kivu, Lacroix noted the importance of advancing the various ongoing peace efforts to achieve the “establishment of a ceasefire.”

The Under-Secretary-General, who concluded this Sunday a visit to the DRC that began on the 3rd, stated that Monusco could “play a role in the supervision and monitoring of this ceasefire.”

“We are very willing to quickly deploy elements to monitor the verification of the ceasefire and, therefore, report on its degree of compliance,” he insisted.

Lacroix stressed that the UN mission has “extensive experience, capacity and solid experience in cooperation in the disarmament of armed groups.”

But to reach that scenario, he qualified, diplomatic efforts must include measures to obtain “concrete results on the ground,” such as the reduction of violence or a ceasefire.

Last Thursday, the president of the DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, met in Kinshasa, the capital, with the Under-Secretary-General to address the persistent security crisis in the east of the country.

During the meeting, the challenges preventing the restoration of peace in the eastern region of the DRC were analyzed, the Congolese Presidency reported in a statement this Friday.

“We have both encouraging diplomatic efforts and a situation of violence that persists on the ground,” Lacroix pointed out at the meeting.

“The question is to ensure that these diplomatic efforts lead to concrete results, that is, the cessation of violence and the implementation of all the commitments made,” he added.

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