DRC: UN Expresses Concern At M23 Rebels Advancement

The United Nations expressed deep concern at reports of M23 rebels and Rwandan troops advancing south towards the Congolese city of Bukavu on Thursday, as the militants sought also to assert their control over east Congo’s largest city Goma.

The Rwandan-backed insurgents’ seizure of Goma this week and ongoing offensive southwards are the biggest escalation since 2012 of a decades-old conflict the U.N. says risks spiralling into another major regional war.

A sustained and successful push by M23 into the neighbouring province of South Kivu would see them control territory previous rebellions have not taken since the end of two major wars that ran from 1996 to 2003, in which millions of civilians died, mostly from malnutrition and disease.

The absence of U.N. peacekeepers in South Kivu heightens the humanitarian and security risks of an escalation in fighting there, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

He added that there were reports of Rwandan forces crossing the border in the direction of South Kivu’s capital Bukavu. The Rwandan authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Troops from neighbouring Burundi, which has had hostile relations with Rwanda, support Congolese troops in South Kivu – meaning the risk of a wider conflict would increase. Burundi’s military declined to comment on the situation in Congo.

Rwanda says it is defending itself, accusing Congo’s military of joining forces with ethnic Hutu-led militias bent on slaughtering Tutsis in Congo and threatening Rwanda, where Hutus targeted Tutsis in a 1994 genocide and some later fled to Congo.

Congo denies this and accuses Rwanda of using M23, which it describes as a “terrorist proxy of Rwanda,” to pillage valuable minerals from Congolese territory. U.N. experts have documented the export of large quantities of looted minerals via Rwanda.

An international backlash against Rwanda, which has included Germany cancelling aid talks and Britain threatening to withhold 32 million pounds ($40 million) of annual bilateral assistance, was having no apparent effect on the ground.

Advancing along Lake Kivu, M23 fighters were pushed back on Wednesday from the town of Nyabibwe, some 50 km, 30 miles, from Bukavu, and were clashing on Thursday with Congolese troops in the nearby location of Kahalala, according to two local sources.

“The Congolese army seems to be putting up fierce resistance there,” said one of the sources, from a civil society organisation in Bukavu.

Reuters/Shakirat Sadiq