Ethiopia: As the leaders of the continent gathered for their annual summit in Addis Ababa UN chief Mr. Antonio Guterres urged them to take “action for peace” in order to stop the escalating violence.

The African Union (AU) gathering aims to address these challenges and jump-start a faltering free trade agreement. Africa is now dealing with a record drought in the Horn of Africa and deadly unrest in the Sahel area and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The majority of the two-day summit’s meetings will take place behind closed doors at the AU’s headquarters in the capital of Ethiopia. But the bloc will be closely watched to see if it can broker ceasefires in the Sahel and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the M23 militia has seized large areas of land and sparked a diplomatic dispute between Kinshasa and the Rwandan government, which is accused of supporting the rebels.

“I am deeply concerned about the recent rise in violence by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere,” Mr. Guterres remarked.

“The mechanisms for peace are faltering,” the UN secretary-general warned. Nevertheless, he urged the bloc to “continue to battle for peace.”

The seven-nation East African Community leaders pressed for all armed groups to leave the eastern DRC’s occupied territory by the end of the following month at a mini-summit. Mr. Guterres met with a number of African leaders, including Paul Kagame of Rwanda, to talk specifically about the issue in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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