After being expelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo almost five months ago, former Rwandan ambassador to Kinshasa Vincent Karega has been appointed to a new diplomatic post in Belgium. He will serve as the Rwandan ambassador to Brussels.
Vincent Karega will lead Rwanda’s most significant diplomatic corps on the European continent. Appointed from a whole list of new ambassadors, the date of his taking office in Brussels has not yet been specified.
Posted in Kinshasa from July 2020, the diplomat, a native of the Congolese province of North Kivu, quickly saw relations with the DRC deteriorate when, at the end of 2021, the armed group M23 launched its offensive in the east. of the country, supported according to the Congolese authorities by Kigali, which Rwanda has always denied.
These accusations and the rebels’ advances on the ground prompted the Kinshasa government to expel the ambassador last October, leaving his post vacant in the country. A decision that Kigali had at the time “noted with regret”.
Before the DRC, Vincent Karega had spent eight years in office in Pretoria. In a period marked by cross-expulsions of diplomats in 2014, the South African authorities accused Rwandan emissaries of being involved in attacks on its soil against opponents of the regime of President Paul Kagame. The government still denies the allegations.