Civilians looted shops and patients lay unattended in a clinic in the front-line town of Kanyabayonga on Thursday after days of fighting between renegade soldiers and troops loyal to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) government, which is trying to regain control of the restive east.
At least 25 000 people have fled the area over the past three weeks, said the head of aid group Solidarite Internationale in the DRC, Miriam Abordhugon.
At Kanyabayonga, fighting that broke out on Sunday has left the town nearly deserted of its 15 000 people, with much of the population living in the nearby forest.
Mihindo Kabale, among about 40 civilians seen among the town’s deserted hills on Thursday, returned with her injured two-year old son strapped to her back to check on her house — already robbed of its belongings.
”It’s difficult,” she said of living in the bush with her husband and seven children. ”There’s nothing to eat. There’s no medicine, no water.”
Around her, civilians with loot clambered and crawled out of smashed shop fronts.
About 30 South African United Nations soldiers — part of an expanding UN force of 11 000 — were on guard, but were only there to protect the two UN observers and didn’t stop the looting.
Since the fighting started, Yalala Kivira (35) has laid in a clinic attended only by her husband. She recently had an intestine operation but the doctor fled when rumours of impending war reached the town on Saturday.
Her surgical wound is now infected.
”She hasn’t eaten anything since,” said her husband, Balanda Kulu, withdrawing her thin blanket to show a festering wound.
Kivira was too weak to talk herself.
A UN official said clashes continued elsewhere on Thursday, with one front line only 7km north of Kanyabayonga.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the distance.
In the capital, Kinshasa, officers said troops loyal to President Joseph Kabila retook an airport at Mubi, 140km north-west of the main eastern city of Goma.
The DRC official said the Rwandan army had used the airstrip to ship out coltan, a valuable mineral used in cellphones and other electronic devices.
Rwanda has denied repeated Congolese allegations of involvement in the latest round of fighting.
The fighting is between troops loyal to Kabila and former Rwandan-backed rebels who were officially integrated into the army after a 2002 peace deal.
Under threat is Kabila’s attempt to restore his authority over a country split apart by rival armed forces, and to secure the volatile border with the DRC’s years-old foe Rwanda.
Two weeks ago, fighting forced many thousands to flee in violence.
The DRC said Rwanda had invaded, launching attacks on civilians and on Rwandan rebels believed to have taken part in that country’s 1994 genocide of more than 500 000.
Rwanda kept silent on those allegations, although it now says it has no forces in its Western Europe-sized neighbour.
Troop reinforcements sent to prevent further attacks sparked the fight on Sunday at Kanyabayonga, pitting them against ex-rebels from the Congolese Rally for Democracy. That insurgency stood as Rwanda’s proxy force during the DRC war, which drew in six nations and left more than three million dead through violence, hunger and disease. — Sapa-AP