UN rights council picks DRC probe members after delay

________________

The UN Human Rights Council announced Monday the appointment of three experts to head an investigation into alleged violations in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, after months of delay due to budget shortages.

The rights council said its president, Swiss ambassador Jurg Lauber, had appointed Arnauld Akodjenou of Benin to head the investigation into the rights situation in South and North Kivu provinces.

He would be accompanied by German-US international criminal prosecutors Maxine Marcus and Clement Nyaletsossi Voule of Togo, it said in a statement.

Rich in mineral resources, eastern DRC has been plagued by conflict for three decades.

Violence has intensified since 2021 with the resurgence of the anti-government M23 group, which the UN says is supported by neighbouring Rwanda and its army, charges denied by Rwanda.

M23 seized the major cities of Goma in January and Bukavu in February. According to the UN, clashes since January have caused thousands of deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The top UN rights body had in February ordered the swift establishment of a high-level Commission of Inquiry (COI) to probe soaring violence in eastern DRC, calling for it to "investigate and establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of all the alleged violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law".

And it called for investigators to "identify, to the extent possible, the persons and entities responsible for violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, as well as any international crimes", with an eye to ensuring accountability.

But dramatic budget shortfalls had delayed the creation of the COI and sparked fears the investigation would never get off the ground.

Rights work has been particularly hard-hit by deep cuts being carried out across the UN as the world body tries to adjust to slashed funding by countries, notably the United States.

The rights council adopted a new resolution earlier this month, reaffirming that it wanted the DRC investigation funded and for the investigators to be appointed by the end of the year.

The investigators, the text said, should carry out their first field visit "by January 2026 at the latest", and deliver their first report to the council in early 2027.