A weakened Congolese military defended himself against rebels backed by Rwanda that the UN said that they were moving quickly to the province of southern Kivu after taking the largest city in the region and an international airport. The crisis, which the UN said killed 700 people this week, puts a second regional airport at risk.
As the fight continued with the M23 rebels on Saturday, the Congolese army recovered the villages of Sanzi, Muganzo and Mukwidja in the Kalehe territory of southern Kivu, which had fallen to the rebels earlier this week, according to two officials of civil society. who spoke with Associated Press about the condition of anonymity about fear for his safety.
The Army of the Central African Nation has weakened after it lost hundreds of foreign troops and mercenaries delivered to the rebels after the rubber fall.
Meanwhile, the UN Peace Maintenance Chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said that the M23 and Rwand The same distance in the previous two days since they began to advance along Lake Kivu Kivu. On the border with Rwanda. Lacroix said the rebels “seem to be moving quite fast” and capturing an airport a few kilometers (miles) away “would be another really significant step.”
M23 is the most powerful of more than 100 armed groups that compete for control in the east rich in Congo minerals, which has large critical deposits for much of world technology. They are backed by around 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to UN experts, much more than in 2012, when they first captured rubber and kept it for days in a conflict promoted by ethnic complaints.
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The rubber seizure resulted in a terrible humanitarian crisis, according to the UN and the help group. Rubber serves as a critical humanitarian center for many of the 6 million people displaced by the conflict in the east of the Congo. The rebels said they will march to the capital Kinshasa de Congo, 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) west.
The UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, also said information Friday that the World Health Organization and its partners conducted an evaluation with the Congo government between January 26 and 30, and reported that 700 people have been killed and 2,800 rubber wounds and vicinity. Dujarric confirmed to AP that the deaths occurred during those days.
The rebel advance has left the extrajudicial murders and the forced recruitment of civilians, the UN Human Rights Office spokesman Jeremy Laurence said on Friday. “We have also documented summary executions of at least 12 people in M23” from January 26 to 28, said Laurence, and added that the group has also occupied schools and hospitals in the province and is subjecting civilians to recruit forced and labor recruit Forced
The Congoleña forces have also been accused of sexual violence as the fight against fury in the region, said Laurence, added that the UN is verifying reports that Congolese troops violated 52 women in southern Kivu.
The rubber capture has taken the humanitarian operations to “a dead point, cutting a vital life line for the delivery of aid in the East (Congo),” said Rose Tchwenko, country director of Mercy Corps Aid Group in Congo.
“The escalation of violence towards Bukavu raises fears of an even greater displacement, while the breakdown of humanitarian access leaves the entire communities stranded without support,” he said.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press