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13-02-2025
The M23 rebels have resumed attacks on armed forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a two-day lull in fighting.
Rebel fighters struck at dawn on Tuesday near the village of Ihusi, located 40km (25 miles) from a strategic military airport in Kavumu and about 70km (43 miles) from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.
The M23, which claims to protect ethnic Tutsis, started advancing on South Kivu after taking control of North Kivu’s Goma in a bloody raid that killed thousands last month, resuming hostilities despite calls from 24 regional leaders for an immediate ceasefire.
Bukavu has been preparing for an M23 offensive for several days, shuttering schools on Friday as residents began to flee and shops closed over fears of an imminent attack.
Journalist Malcolm Webb, who was reporting from Nairobi in Kenya, said “anxious” residents of Bukavu were waiting to find out if “M23 and its Rwandan supporters” would succeed in advancing on the city.
Meanwhile, people fleeing a displacement camp located west of North Kivu’s capital, Goma, claimed an M23 colonel had entered the site on Sunday and ordered them to leave within three days.
The M23 released a statement on Monday denying those accusations, saying that people were voluntarily leaving the Bulengo camp, returning to what it called their “now-secured homes in liberated areas”.
Many people have been living for up to two years in the “swelling camp” and did not know if they had homes to which they could return, Webb added. “Most of them appear now to be packing up and beginning the journey. Some others have said they will wait and see if and when they are forced to leave,” he said.
On Saturday, 24 East and Southern African leaders called for an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire in DRC within five days, fearing the conflict would spill over into neighboring countries.
The UN says conflict has forced 6.7 million people from their homes within the country, most from North and South Kivu provinces where violence and insecurity have increased since 2021, with the resurgence of the M23 rebels.
The latest violence has forced more than 500,000 from their homes since the beginning of the year, placing overcrowded and under-resourced displacement camps under extreme pressure.
Bruno Lemarquis, a top UN official in the country, said that the escalating humanitarian crisis in the country had been exacerbated by a pause in aid from the United States, which funded 70 percent of operations last year.
The 90-day pause, announced by US President Donald Trump hours after entering office last month, had meant “a lot of programs”, including “emergency health” and “emergency shelter”, had been forced to close down, said Lemarquis.
Rwanda denial
The UN estimated earlier this month that clashes between the M23 and Congolese forces in Goma had left nearly 3,000 dead.
DRC accuses Rwanda and the rebels of looting the country’s resources, which include vast deposits of rare earths. Rwanda denies those allegations.
“We categorically oppose the DRC’s attempts to portray Rwanda as being responsible for its instability in the eastern DRC,” Rwanda’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, James Ngango, told an emergency meeting of the Human Rights Council. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
