Rebel leader Nkunda will return to DRC, says Rwanda

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, currently under house arrest in Rwanda, will eventually be sent back to his country, Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali said on Saturday.

“General Nkunda is Congolese and will eventually have to return to his country,” she said.

Museminali said the date and the conditions of Nkunda’s return to the DRC were being discussed “by a team comprising representatives from both parties”.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila announced a week earlier that the process to extradite the leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People was under way.

Nkunda was captured last month, two days into an unprecedented joint Rwandan-Congolese military operation in the eastern DRC officially targeted at Rwandan Hutu rebels.

On Friday, Museminali and her Congolese counterpart, Tambwe Mwamba, concluded a four-day meeting in northern Rwanda to assess progress made in the operation.—AFP