The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has used his position as a member of the House of Lords - the upper house of Britain's Parliament - to ask the British government how they are responding to "the escalating violence and suppression of peaceful protests across the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Addressing Government minister the Earl of Courtown yesterday (Tuesday), Archbishop Justin said he had spoken that morning to Archbishop Zacharie Masimango Katanda, Primate of the Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo (the Anglican Church of Congo) about the "prevailing anarchy across the country which the central Government in Kinshasa seem unable to control." He said that the on-going war had created "two million refugees who are now living in conditions of immeasurable suffering and four million casualties over the past 20 years"

He said that the UN peacekeeping and stabilisation operation in Congo - MONUSCO - had seen a "sad weakening of the already overstretched forces" and asked the government to use its influence on UN Security Council's permanent members "to seek to reinforce those MONUSCO forces and find ways of serving the poorest and most desperate of that region." And he asked "what practical steps . . . can the Government find to ensure that the commitments to elections are undertaken?"

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