The United Nations said on Tuesday it had established ”almost with certainty” that Rwandan soldiers had entered the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the past two weeks.
”It has been established almost with certainty that Rwandan soldiers passed along this road” between Rutshuru and Kanyabayonga, two towns in eastern DRC, and the settlements of Ikobo, said Jacqueline Chenard, spokesperson for the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monuc).
Chenard was speaking by phone from Goma, a DRC town on the border with Rwanda, 75km south of Rutshuru.
Military activity had been reported in this area over the last two weeks and a UN verification team has been gathering witness statements from local inhabitants.
Kigali has denied sending troops across the border but insists it planned to do so in order to take on Rwandan Hutu rebels who have been based in eastern areas of the DRC since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, in which many of them took part.
”No further military activity has been reported in this area and we are no longer getting information about other military activity in Nord Kivu,” added Chenard.
The spokesperson was unable to say whether the allegedly Rwandan troops were still inside the DRC.
Last week, Monuc said it had a wealth of ”clues” about Rwandan military presence in the country.
Members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a group that includes the Rwandan Hutu former soldiers and allied militia that did much of the killing in the 1994 genocide, were recently staying in Ikobo, according to several sources.
Rwanda’s current Tutsi-led government, which came to power in July 1994, considers the Rwandan Hutus in the eastern DRC as a threat to its security.
”Villages were burnt around Lusamambo,” one of the Ikobo settlements, ”but the soldiers did not harrass the population,” said Chenard.
She added there had been some ”victims”, without giving precise details.
Most residents fled before the soldiers came and the number of recently displaced is around 5 000, according to Chenard.
Some of the elderly and sick were unable to flee and so ”saw the arrival of very well-equipped soldiers speaking Kinyarwanda [Rwanda’s official language, which is also spoken in eastern DRC] who did not know the area well and were not familiar with the Congolese franc,” said the spokesperson.
These witnesses said the soldiers ”could not be Congolese,” she added.
It is not easy to distinguish Kinyarwanda-speaking soldiers of the DRC army from their Rwandan counterparts and no independent source has been able to state categorically that Kigali’s troops have been deployed inside DRC recently. – Sapa-AFP