Thousands of civilians fled fresh fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday, forming long columns heading towards Goma on foot, an Agence France-Presse journalist reported.
About 20 000 men, women and children were streaming out of the Kibumba area about 35km north of the regional capital, where fresh fighting flared early on Monday between forces loyal to rebel general Laurent Nkunda and government troops.
The rebels attacked the area early on Monday, continuing an offensive in which they seized a strategic military camp on Sunday at Rumangabo, about 50km north of Goma, the capital of Nord-Kivu.
On Sunday, DRC President Joseph Kabila replaced his defence minister in a government of ”combat and reconstruction” in a bid to pacify the east of the country, which is about a quarter the size of the United States.
”It’s a combat team to which has been assigned the essential missions of security and reconstruction,” according to a statement from Kabila on the formation of the third government since his 2006 election.
The UN said last week more than 200 000 people have been displaced since renewed fighting broke out in Nord-Kivu province on August 28, in violation of a ceasefire agreement signed in Goma in January.
An estimated total of between 1,4-million and two million civilians have been displaced by the fighting, more than a quarter of the province’s population of five million. — Sapa-AFP