Pro-government Mayi-Mayi militia battled former rebels for control of an east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town in a week of artillery and gun battles that sent the town’s 15 000 people fleeing, officials and residents said on Friday.
United Nations radio reported at least 15 ex-rebels killed in the clashes at Walikale, near the border with Rwanda. There was no word on casualties among Mayi-Mayi militia, or civilians.
The fighting involves rival sides from the DRC’s 1998 to 2003 war — Mayi-Mayi militia, who fought on the government side, and the Rally for Congolese Democracy, a rebel group backed by Rwanda.
Although 2002 peace deals ended major fighting, the east DRC — particularly areas near the Rwandan border — remain volatile.
Walikale mayor Eric Kitsa Kalubiru, appointed by the former rebels, said Mayi-Mayi attacked the town last week.
The Mayi-Mayi apparently wanted to take control of the areas from the ex-rebels, the mayor said.
”But [ex-rebel] troops resisted the Mayi-Mayi and are still controlling the locality,” he said.
There was no independent confirmation on Friday as to who was in control of the town.
Fighting eased by Friday, but the town was all but empty — its 15 000 residents fled into the bush, Kalubiru said.
Officials with the nearly 11 000-strong UN peacekeeping force in the DRC weren’t immediately available to confirm details of the latest fighting.
Despite peace deals that ended the war that drew in the armies of six nations, the DRC’s eastern regions have remained unstable. In June, two former Rwanda-backed rebel commanders who had joined the DRC’s government army mutinied, seizing control of the border city of Bukavu for a week.
An estimated 3,2-million people died in the DRC’s war, most from strife-induced disease and hunger.
President Joseph Kabila is leading a national-unity government in the faraway capital, Kinshasa, an administration that brings together the former warring parties to prepare for 2005 elections.
The DRC, the size of Western Europe, has known little but corrupt governance, followed by war, since its 1960 independence from tiny Belgium, and is one of the world’s poorest nations despite vast mineral wealth. — Sapa-AP