GOMA, DR Congo — Fresh fighting erupted on
Wednesday in the
DR Congo’s troubled east between army troops and the M23 rebel
group after a week of relative calm, local sources said.
اضافة اعلان
“The army attacked all the M23 positions in Musongati,
Tchanzu, and Runyoni” that the rebels took last week, Damien Seburazane, a
representative of civil society groups, told AFP.
Colonel Muhindo Lwanzo, the chief aide to the
territory’s military administrator, said the rebels had retreated from the
strategic hill of Bugusa close to the highway linking the city of Goma to the
Ugandan border, “before the army arrived in the area.”
The fighting has been taking place in Rutshuru
territory in
North Kivu province — the epicenter of a resurgence by a group
that was dormant for several years.
The M23 was born among former members of a Congolese
Tutsi militia that was once supported by Rwanda and Uganda.
The rebels had been incorporated in the Congolese
army under a peace deal signed on March 23, 2009.
In 2012, they mutinied, saying the deal had not been
upheld and named their group the March 23 (M23) Movement.
Becoming one of the scores of armed groups that roam
eastern DR Congo, the M23 briefly seized the city of Goma before being defeated
and forced out of the country.
After its defeat, the M23 eventually signed an
accord with Kinshasa that included provisions for its fighters to reintegrate
into civilian society.
But the group has again accused the government of
reneging on the deal and resumed fighting last year.
On March 28, the M23 moved out of strongholds in the
high hills to attack army positions in Rutshuru.
After two days of fighting in which tens of
thousands of villagers fled, the M23 declared what it called a unilateral
ceasefire, saying it sought a “peaceful settlement in the crisis with the
government.”
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