adminLambert Mende said President Joseph Kabila had met M23 representatives in Uganda for the first time on Saturday and had reiterated his readiness to consider their demands.
“Negotiations will start after the (M23) withdrawal from Goma. Even if we want to negotiate, this can’t be before 48 hours,” Mende said, referring to a deadline given to the rebels on Saturday.
A spokesman for M23 also said Kabila had met Jean-Marie Runiga, the rebels’ political chief, after a meeting in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Saturday on the Congo crisis attended by Kabila and the heads of state of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
The regional leaders called on the rebels to abandon their aim of toppling the government and leave Goma, which they captured this week.
The leaders’ plan proposed deploying a joint force at Goma airport comprising of a company of neutral African troops, a company of the Congolese army (FARDC) and a company of the M23.
M23 was also required to withdraw to positions not less than 20k from Goma within two days, but did not say what the consequences would be if the rebels did not comply.
Regional and international leaders are trying to halt the latest bout of violence in eastern Congo, where fighting is fuelled by a mix of local and regional politics, ethnic rifts and competition for large reserves of gold, tin and coltan.
Meanwhile, Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters briefly took control of a small town on the border with Kenya in a battle that left at least 12 people dead, military officials and witnesses said yesterday.
Heavy fighting broke out late Saturday afternoon in Bulohawo and lasted into the evening, residents and military commanders said, with residents confirming that the Shebab took full control of the town for a few hours before Somali troops were able to reinforce their positions.
“The violent elements attacked Bulohawo in late afternoon and after heavy fighting our forces defeated them and inflicted heavy losses on them,” Diyad Abdi Kalil, a Somali military commander in the area, told AFP by phone.
Casualty estimates varied but most sources agreed that at least a dozen people, most of them fighters for the two sides, had been killed.
“The Shebab attacked the town from three directions and penetrated the barracks of the Somali troops after heavy fighting.
“They briefly took control of the town but were later forced back. Twelve people, most of them the fighters from the two sides, died,” said resident Sadik Mohamed.
Another resident, Hussein Mahat Abdulle, confirmed he had seen bodies in government uniform as well as bodies of what looked like Shebab fighters.
Kalil said his men had killed “nearly 20” Shebab, but a spokesman for the Islamists dismissed that claim and said his men had killed 15 Somali government troops.
Bulohawo, which lies just across the border from the town of Mandera in the extreme northeast of Kenya, has been calm so far, residents said.
Officials said two civilians in Mandera town had been hit by gunfire during the fighting.
Mandera County Commissioner Michael Ole Tialal told AFP that civilians and Somali troops had fled briefly across the border to escape the fighting.
“Many civilians and Somali soldiers crossed to border point one in Mandera,” he said by phone. “Once the fighting subsided and the attackers were repulsed many crossed back over,” he said.
Around 10 civilians injured in the fighting were also evacuated across the border to Mandera for medical treatment, according to residents on the Kenyan side. — AFP
Online Reporter