Nairobi - Rebel groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the government signed a landmark peace deal Wednesday that could see the protracted conflict inch toward a resolution, the BBC reported. After two weeks of negotiations, rebels loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda agreed to maintain a ceasefire to prevent further deaths in the conflict that has forced more than 450,000 people to flee their homes since late 2006.
The eastern Mai Mai rebels also signed the peace deal, which came the week the International Rescue Committee relief group said 45,000 people are killed in the DRC every month by conflict, disease and malnutrition.
According to the agreement, Nkunda's fighters were offered an amnesty from prosecution for insurgency but could still be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The two sides did not agree, however, on Nkunda's fate.
Both armies said they would withdraw from parts of the east, to be replaced by United Nations peacekeepers already fanned out across the country and decisions were reached on the fate of the displaced persons.
The peace conference, sponsored by the United States, the European Union and the African Union, was one of the few concrete moves forward in the stagnating conflict.
Nkunda broke ranks with the Congolese military in 2004, charging the government was doing too little to protect ethnic Tutsis from attacks by Hutu extremists who fled into the vast country after Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Refusing to integrate his troops into the national army, he has battled the national army since then claiming he is protecting the Tutsis.
