Army forces and insurgents were battling in a number of villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday in the latest fighting to flout a January truce, the United Nations said.
The fighting started at about 8am local time, according to UN military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich. The UN had received reports of the army using mortars throughout the Masisi area, north-west of the regional capital of Goma, he added.
Such skirmishes have continued to break out between DRC’s army and rebels loyal to eastern warlord Laurent Nkunda, despite the ceasefire deal that both sides had hailed as an end to years of violence.
Neither government nor military officials were available to comment.
Rebel leaders said they were being attacked by the army.
”Since the morning [Wednesday] we have been attacked in many parts of Masisi, including Kangundu, Rubaya and other areas around these two,” rebel spokesperson Bertrand Bisimwa said.
Dietrich added that other areas that saw fighting on Tuesday appeared to have calmed and said that the rebel fighters had been drawing back as agreed in the ceasefire deal.
”We are observing that the CNDP [rebel fighters] are continuing to withdraw, but, unfortunately, fighting is also continuing,” Dietrich said.
UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe said UN humanitarian agencies and international aid organisations were working to restore the delivery of essential medical supplies and services in North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern part of the country.
She told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday that the delivery was disrupted by the outbreak of hostilities in August that displaced about 100 000 people.
Nkunda was a commander of rebels backed by neighbouring Rwanda during DRC’s 1998 to 2002 war, which drew in the armies of half a dozen African nations. After the broader war ended, he quit the army and launched a low-level rebellion, claiming the country’s transition to democracy had excluded the country’s minority Tutsi ethnic group.
DRC held its first democratic elections in more than four decades in 2006, but the new government has struggled to assert its control the vast country, particularly in the east. — Sapa-AP