Fifteen people — six rebel Rwandan Hutu militiamen, a government soldier and eight civilians — have been killed in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), military sources said on Tuesday.
The attacks in the restive Nord-Kivu province were led by Rwandan Hutu rebels accompanied by local Mai Mai militiamen about 75km north of the provincial capital, Goma, an army officer said, requesting anonymity.
They came less than a week after the start of a joint operation by the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monuc) and the DRC army to roust rebels of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) from the nearby Virunga nature reserve, a UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation heritage site that is home to endangered mountain gorillas.
The attacks took place in the neighbouring towns of Nyamilima on Monday and Katweguru on Tuesday, the army officer said.
He said seven civilians were killed in the first attack, a toll confirmed by a medical centre in Nyamilima, according to Monuc in Goma.
The attack in Katweguru occurred early on Tuesday when six Rwandan Hutu rebels were killed as well as a DRC soldier and a civilian, according to an army report that has not been independently confirmed.
In the Virunga operation, involving 300 UN peacekeepers and 600 DRC soldiers, an FDLR camp was destroyed in the town of Rive, about 10km from Katweguru.
”You wonder what these operations achieve when you see the violence of the attacks on civilians,” a UN observer based in Nord-Kivu said, also requesting anonymity.
”We try to raise awareness to get Mai Mai fighters to join the national disarmament programme and the Rwandan rebels to accept repatriation to Rwanda. Some do, but just a trickle,” he said.
Several humanitarian agencies recently reported that nearly 150 000 Nord-Kivu residents fled the area following military operations in recent months.
Despite agreeing on paper to disarm and return to Rwanda last year, few FDLR rebels have actually done so, demanding security guarantees that Rwandan authorities have refused to offer.
The FDLR is made up of Rwandans who fled to the eastern DRC in 1994 in the wake of the genocide in their country as well as fighters who were recruited as children.
Many are accused of having taking part in the genocide, and the international community considers their presence in the DRC as a major source of instability in the region.
A UN source in the region said last week that the DRC army, which for years openly supported the FDLR and relied on it as a fighting force during the country’s 1998-2003 war, is unable to operate efficiently against its former protégés.
FDLR hideouts are scattered throughout the dense jungle in the vast, volatile and largely unpoliced area, and the occupants vacate the bases ahead of raids only to return later or set up shop nearby, local residents say.
Nevertheless, efforts to kill or capture members of the FDLR and other armed groups have been stepped up ahead of elections later this year.
Military analysts believe the FDLR, estimated to number between 8 000 and 15 000 fighters, now pose more of a threat to DRC civilians than to the Rwandan government, but Kigali maintains that as long as its members have genocidal ideas, the movement poses a serious threat. — Sapa-AFP