Nairobi, Oct. 30 -- The East African Community is facing renewed pressure to avert simmering violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and save the various tracks of diplomatic processes launched in Nairobi and Luanda aimed at solving multilayers of conflict.

But, amid renewed fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and rebel group M23, the regional bloc has signalled that military action in the DRC will be the last resort. Officials said they are concentrating on pushing the armed groups to join the negotiating table instead.

From November 2, Nairobi is expected to gather the various warring factions in a second attempt to convince them to abandon war for political talks.

The challenge, however, is that Kinshasa has said it wi...