adminThe UN and the Congolese army, who claim the M23 rebels are a Rwandan proxy, had deployed tanks around Goma but the mutineers said they had no plan to seize the regional capital and only wanted to negotiate with Kinshasa.
Three helicopters from the UN’s mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) and two from Congolese army (FARDC) were seen around the villages of Nkokwe and Bukima, where the rebels are thought to have some positions.
“The FARDC are currently attacking our positions, but they don’t know where we are. There’s no problem,” a colonel from the mutiny told AFP.
The two locations are on the western border of the Virunga national park, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Goma.
The M23 mutineers, who defected from the army in April, had launched an offensive in recent days, easily overwhelming the FARDC. Around 600 regular troops and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to seek refuge in Uganda. The mutineers had seized a number of towns along the Ugandan border and promptly withdrew from all but Bunagana, a town on the border with Uganda.
M23 — named after a failed 2009 peace deal signed on March 23 — is led by Bosco Ntaganda, a man nicknamed the “Terminator” who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
The mutineers are ex-rebels who were integrated into the regular army in 2009 as part of a deal that followed their failed 2008 offensive on Goma, under the command of Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda. — AFP
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