A contingent of South African soldiers began their second year in the war zone with no peace in sight.

Listen to this article 7 min Listen to this article 7 min A scheduled peace summit on Sunday between presidents Felix Tshisekedi of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Paul Kagame of Rwanda was cancelled at the last minute, leaving South African troops to begin their second year of deployment in the perilous instability of the eastern DRC.

Tshisekedi and Kagame had been expected to meet in Luanda under the auspices of Angolan President Joao Lourenço to endorse a peace plan drafted by their officials. But Kagame pulled out, imposing conditions on DRC which analysts said had not been in the draft agreement.

The two presidents would have met on 15 December, the first anniversary of the deployment of South African troops to eastern DRC as part of the Southern African Development Community Mission in DRC (SAMIDRC) with a mandate to forcefully engage the armed groups which have been terrorising Congolese for many years. Several soldiers of SAMIDRC, which also includes Tanzanian and Malawian troops, have been killed or injured during the past year.

SAMIDRC's main aim is to try to help Congolese troops neutralise the M23, an armed rebel group of ethnic Tutsi Congolese substantially supported by Rwanda....