GOMA, DR Congo
Troops clashed with M23 rebels
around a strategic highway in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday,
sources said, following a recent flare-up between the two sides.Democratic Republic of Congo army soldiers sit at the back of a pick-up truck as they head towards the Mbuzi hilltop, near Rutshuru, after the army recaptured the area from M23 rebels.
A mostly Congolese Tutsi
group, the M23 resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for
years. It has since captured swathes of territory in North Kivu province,
including the strategic town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June.
The group’s resurgence has
destabilized regional relations in central Africa, with the DRC accusing its
smaller neighbor Rwanda of backing the militia.
The frontline between
Congolese troops and M23 rebels had been calm in recent weeks until Thursday,
when clashes erupted again.
On Sunday, M23 fighters
captured the village of Ntamugenga in North Kivu’s Rutshuru area, according to
local officials.
The village lies about four
kilometers (2.5 miles) from the RN2, a strategic highway leading to the
provincial capital Goma.
Fighting between soldiers and
the M23 spread to the highway itself on Thursday.
“Clashes are ongoing on the
RN2,” said local official Justin Komayombi, who added that the road was
blocked because M23 fighters were in the settlements of Kako and Kalengera.
Samson Rukira, a local
civil-society leader in Rutshuru, confirmed the road had been blocked. “The
situation is tense,” he said.
The Kivu Security Tracker
(KST), a respected violence monitor, also said that M23 activity had cut access
to a portion of the highway.
The militia is occupying the
settlements of Rubare, Kalengera, and Kako, it added, which all lie on the
highway.
The M23 first leaped to
prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before a joint Congolese-UN
offensive drove it out.
The militia is one of scores
of armed groups that roam eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional
wars that flared late last century.
Despite official denials from
Kigali, an unpublished report for the United Nations seen by AFP in
August pointed to Rwandan involvement with the M23.
The same report said the M23
plans to capture Goma, an important trade hub of about one million people, in
order to extract political concessions from the Congolese government. - Thedefensepost
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