Kanyabayonga

Rwanda withdrew on Monday a threat to send soldiers into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Kinshasa accuses them of siding with rebels in the eastern town of Kanyabayonga that has been gripped by fighting. ”We are no longer going to threaten to go into the DRC,” Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said.

On the wooded heights north of Kanyababonga, a fetid stench rises from the corpses that have lain three days in the African sun. The traces of fighting between mutinous soldiers and the army in this eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are everywhere to be seen, and in the centre of the town what little was left has been pillaged.

Fighting between the regular army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and armed men resumed early on Wednesday near the eastern town of Kanyabayonga, an AFP journalist reported, while United Nations officials in the capital, Kinshasa, reported an attempted incursion from neighbouring Rwanda.

Rebel troops on Monday killed a dozen Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government soldiers in a battle for control of the eastern town of Kanyabayonga, rebel officials said. The rebels, a mutinous force within the vast country’s post-war army, were in control of central Kanyabayonga.