Rebel fighters have seized six towns and villages in the turbulent eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after Congolese troops apparently withdrew, officials in the area said on Friday.
Insurgents occupied the municipalities — all within a radius of about 40km from the town of Rutshuru, 75km north of the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma — on Thursday and Friday, they said.
Officials said the attacks could be intended to discourage a proposed visit to Goma by DRC President Joseph Kabila ahead of elections scheduled for April and June.
A United Nations official said the towns are Rutshuru itself; Tonga, 30km west; Rubare, 15km south; Bunagana, 30km south-east on the Ugandan border; and Jomba and Runyoni, 5km and 10km respectively from Bunagana.
The official could not identify the fighters who have occupied the towns, but a Congolese politician in Goma said they are loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi who briefly occupied Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, in 2004.
For the past several months, he and his men have been keeping a low profile holed up in the bush to the north-west of Goma. DRC authorities have issued a warrant for Nkunda’s arrest, but it has yet to be acted upon.
The Congolese politician said Nkunda’s forces are moving in opposition to Colonel Jean-Marie She Kasikila, who heads the Fifth Integrated Brigade of the DRC army and is based in Rutshuru.
”It’s Nkunda’s men only and their operations are directed against She Kasikila,” he said on condition of anonymity.
A military spokesperson with the UN mission to the DRC (Monuc) said She Kasikila has moved to Kanyabayonga, 150km north of Goma, hinting that his integrated brigade did not put up much of a fight.
On Thursday, Nkunda’s fighters assaulted Runyoni, the first in a latest series of raids, in an attack that left seven of the assailants dead as well as five DRC army soldiers wounded and two missing, officials said.
Monuc officials said the Governor of North Kivu, Eugene Serufuli, would lead a delegation to Rutshuru and Bunagana on Saturday to try to calm the situation.
Serufuli was not available for comment on Friday, nor was the regional military chief, General Gabriel Amisi, but Monuc sources said the DRC army had sent reinforcements to the area.
In a statement released on Friday, Monuc said that while its primary responsibility is ”ensuring regional stability through peaceful means”, it would ”use force in order to prevent the loss of human life”.
Despite ever more forceful attempts by Monuc to wipe out both foreign and Congolese militia operating in the eastern DRC, a number of such groups continue to prey on the civilian population in the region.
Attempts to get Nkunda out of the bush through negotiations have so far failed.
The upcoming elections — the DRC’s first in more than 40 years — will put an end to a transition government headed by Kabila and four vice-presidents drawn from various factions that waged the 1998-to-2003 war.
Despite an official end to the conflict, violence has continued in the east of the country, with many groups continuing to pillage civilian populations. — Sapa-AFP