GOMA, DR Congo
Troops and rebels traded heavy fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, a military source and local inhabitants said, as an envoy from the East African bloc called for all armed groups to "silence the guns".
Government forces and the M23
militia were fighting in Kibumba, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the
strategic city Goma, the sources said, speaking by phone.
M23 fighters were also seen
about 40 kilometres northwest of the city in the Virunga National Park, a
wildlife haven famed for its mountain gorillas but which is also a hideout for
armed groups, the sources said.
A mostly Congolese Tutsi
group, the M23 -- the March 23 Movement -- leapt to prominence in 2012 when it
briefly captured Goma before being driven out.
After lying dormant for years,
the rebels took up arms again in late 2021, claiming the DRC had failed to
honour a pledge to integrate them into the army, among other grievances.
They have since won a string
of victories against the military and captured swathes of territory, prompting
thousands of people to flee their homes.
The resurgence has ratcheted
up diplomatic tensions, with the DRC accusing its smaller neighbour Rwanda of
backing the group.
Kinshasa expelled Rwanda's
ambassador at the end of last month as the M23 advanced, and recalled its own
envoy from Kigali.
Rwanda denies providing any
support for the M23 and accuses the Congolese army of colluding with the Forces
for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) -- a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved
in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.
"The Rwandan army and its
allies from the M23 don't stop, every passing day, launching assaults on our
different positions in Kibumba," lieutenant colonel Guillaume Ndjike, army
spokesman for the eastern North Kivu province, told reporters.
Witnesses in the rebel-held
town of Kiwanja also spoke last week of school canteens backed by World Food
Programme being pillaged on Sunday and Monday.
"There was corn flour and
oil. They took these provisions as food rations," a resident said.
Another said oil cans, flour
sacks and beans had been taken away by truck the previous day.
Eastern DRC saw two bloody
regional wars in the 1990s.
That conflict, along with the
Rwandan genocide, bequeathed a legacy of scores of armed groups which remain
active across the region but especially in North Kivu.
The heads of the seven-nation
East African Community (EAC) on Sunday announced they would hold a "peace
dialogue" on the region's conflicts.
"All groups that
currently bear arms should lay those arms down and choose the path of peace
through dialogue," said EAC's mediator, former Kenyan president Uhuru
Kenyatta, on Monday.
He arrived in Kinshasa the day
before to hold consultations ahead of November 21 peace talks in Nairobi.
"Silence the guns and
join in a political process," he urged local armed groups.
To foreign groups, "the
DRC is no longer the battleground for problems that are not from this
country," Kenyatta added.
"There is nothing that
can be gained through the barrel of a gun."
Another diplomatic path is
being explored by Angolan President Joao Lourenco.
He met on Friday with Rwandan
President Paul Kagame and on Saturday with Congolese President Felix
Tshisekedi.
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