Army: M23 rebels pushed back in eastern DRC

DRC army says M23 rebels forced out of town near city of Goma in second day of fighting as UN and US call for restraint. Last Modified: 27 Oct 2013 04:43

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 told the Reuters news agency. "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. Calling for retraint But on Friday Rwanda's UN ambassador told a closed-door meeting of the Security Council Rwanda 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. UN investigators have accused Rwanda of supporting M23, a charge Kigali has denied. The rebels take their name from a peace agreement they signed with the DRC government on March 22 2009, paving the way for their integration into the national army, but they mutinied in April 2012 over poor salaries and living conditions, renewing an armed rebellion in the country's mineral-rich east. In a joint statement, UN special envoy to the Great Lakes region, Mary Robinson, and head of MONUSCO Martin Kobler urged restraint and called on both sides to return to the negotiating table in Uganda's capital Kampala, where on-and-off peace talks between the government and M23 have been held since December. MONUSCO said on Friday it was on high alert and monitoring the clashes. The United States also said it was alarmed at the reports of increased fighting, despite international calls for restraint. "We are particularly concerned about reports of cross-border firing," in North Kivu, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, urging all parties "to refrain from acts of further escalation". Psaki's statement urged all parties to return to negotiations "to overcome remaining hurdles to the signing of a final, principled peace agreement, which would establish a permanent ceasefire and hold accountable those who have committed serious crimes". The fighting is the most serious since late August, when the Congolese army and a new UN Intervention Brigade forced M23 from positions just north of Goma. A UN spokesman in New York said about 5,000 civilians had fled across the border into Rwanda.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies