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The Congolese army has said it made significant advances against eastern rebel forces in a second day of fierce fighting and called on neighbouring Rwanda to help disarm the fighters.
The army’s advances on Saturday follow Friday clashes with M23 rebels, the first in two months, after peace talks in Uganda broke down this week.
M23 said in a statement on Saturday that the army had launched a “generalised attack” on several fronts, but that the fighting was turning in its favour.
Army spokesman Colonel Olivier Hamuli said, however, that M23 had been forced out of Kibumba, a town 20km north of Goma, the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. “We have pushed M23 into the hills on the Rwandan border,” he said. “We now call on Rwanda to help us disarm their fighters.”
The army “has launched an offensive on the Mabenga-Kahunga road. It is using troops, tanks and mortar shells”, another army officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The rebels confirmed that the fighting had spread north. “It’s heating up on all fronts,” the M23’s political leader Bertrand Bisimwa said on his movement’s website.
Rebels claimed the army attacked their positions early on Friday, but the military insisted it came under attack first – a claim supported by a source from the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO.
But on Friday Rwanda’s UN ambassador told a closed-door meeting of the Security Council that shells fired by the Congolese army had landed in its territory and that Kigali would not tolerate such shelling and could respond militarily, diplomats said. – Al Jazeera
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