Mortar fire in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) killed three Tanzanian soldiers who were part of a Southern African peacekeeping mission sent to help government forces fight M23 rebels, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said on Monday.

"This unfortunate incident happened after a hostile mortar round had fallen near the camp they were staying at," the 16-member bloc said in a statement. Three other Tanzanian soldiers were wounded, it added.

The statement added that another South African soldier on the SADC mission had died while receiving treatment for unspecified health problems at a hospital in the provincial capital, Goma. It was not clear if that death was related to the mortar round.

The force includes soldiers from regional military heavyweights South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. 

The SADC mission suffered its first losses in mid-February, when two South African soldiers were killed and three wounded by a mortar bomb.

What is the SADC mission doing in DRC?

After several years of dormancy, the predominantly Tutsi M23 (March 23 Movement) group took up arms again in late 2021.

It has seized large swaths of DR Congo's North Kivu province, which has been wracked by violence in the decades since regional wars in the 1990s.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations and Western countries accuse Rwanda of supporting the rebels in a bid to control the region's vast mineral wealth, a charge Rwanda denies.

The regional bloc SADC sent soldiers to North Kivu province in December to help the government tackle instability and armed groups in the restive eastern region.

The SADC mission was to take over from an East African peacekeeping force, whose mandate was ended by the DRC, which accused it of colluding with the rebels instead of fighting them.

Meanwhile, the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) is also winding down. The 15,000 UN troops began leaving in February at the request of the DRC government, which considers them ineffective.

The withdrawal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

dh/wmr (AFP, Reuters)