Fighting resumed on Friday between government troops and rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a new breach of a truce agreement, sources on both sides said.
The governor of Nord-Kivu province, Julien Pakulu, said forces of renegade general Laurent Nkunda had attacked positions of the government’s Seventh Brigade at Katsiru, about 100km north-west of the provincial capital, Goma.
Bertrand Bisimwa, a senior official of Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), for his part accused the army of launching the first attack.
Another local official, Jason Luneno, said the CNDP had seized a number of government positions, as civilians fled the fighting.
A spokesperson for the United Nations mission in DRC, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, confirmed that clashes had occurred around Katsiru.
”We sent forces to the scene but local people stoned their vehicles,” he said.
On Wednesday demonstrators in Rutshuru, north of Goma, attacked UN peacekeepers and burned one of their vehicles, accusing them of siding with the rebels following earlier fighting between the two sides.
The UN force had called for government troops to hand back positions they seized from Nkunda’s forces, and for both sides ”to avoid all actions likely to result in a new escalation of violence”.
A deal in January, known as the Goma Agreement, among other things, committed the warring factions in the region to a ceasefire, but armed clashes have continued and there have been numerous attacks on civilians. — Sapa