Renewed fighting flares up in east Congo

FRESH fighting raged yesterday outside the flashpoint city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebels and army said, blaming each other for the outbreak.

An army officer said rebels had attacked government-held positions on Wednesday night, 20km north of the capital of North Kivu province, sparking clashes involving heavy weaponry that continued into yesterday. The territory, near the villages of Mutaho and Kibati, has been in government hands since the middle of last month, he said.

M23 intelligence officer Modeste Bahati confirmed the renewed fighting but blamed the army for starting it by attacking rebel positions around Kibati.

“Our forces are holding their positions,” he told AFP.

The rebels accused the army of wanting to “broaden” an offensive against them. “The absurd war relaunched by the Congolese government appears to be an outburst of anger after the failure of military-style diplomacy in these past weeks,” M23 spokesman Amani Kabasha said. He accused the army of breaching “recent recommendations by the United Nations Security Council, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, and the Southern African Development Community for the resumption of peace talks”. Both sides were not yet able to say how many people had been killed or wounded.

The rebellion by the M23, a movement launched by Tutsi former soldiers who deserted from the army in April last year, is the latest insurgency to ravage the Congo’s mineral-rich but conflicttorn east.

About 1,000 rebels have been active in North Kivu province since May last year.