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/ 5 December 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for talks with African leaders aimed at tackling long-running conflicts in the volatile Great Lakes region, Somalia and Sudan. On only her second trip in two years to sub-Saharan Africa, Rice said she wanted to move international efforts forward to resolve those conflicts.
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/ 4 December 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) troops clashed with rebels in the country’s east for a second straight day on Tuesday as they sought to take control of a strategic village, the army said. Fighting in the past two days has killed four soldiers and injured about 20.
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/ 3 December 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army attacked a stronghold of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda on Monday, a day after his men seized a strategic town from the government and forced out thousands of civilians, United Nations officials said.
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/ 30 November 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday. Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming Secretary of State in 2005.
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/ 26 November 2007
A senior United Nations official has called on armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) troubled Nord Kivu region to lay down their arms and reintegrate into the regular army, a statement said on Monday. Intense fighting has been shaking eastern Nord-Kivu province near the border with Rwanda for weeks.
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/ 23 November 2007
Explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday, as government troops battled rebels for a third day amid a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced nearly 200 000 people in the past few months, a United Nations military spokesperson said.
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/ 22 November 2007
It may only be a short walk from its bustling neighbour Sake, but Kimoka is a ghost town. Homes are abandoned, the school is deserted and the brand-new church empty. Light streams in through the open door on to huge leather drums beside the pulpit. When the congregation fled, the drums became redundant.
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/ 22 November 2007
United Nations peacekeepers will help the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army disarm eastern dissident groups by force in violence-plagued North Kivu province, UN and Congolese commanders said. Army soldiers and fighters loyal to renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda clashed again on Thursday a few kilometres from Rutshuru.
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/ 22 November 2007
Fighting flared in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s powder keg east on Wednesday, as the army battled insurgent troops after killing 20 rebel soldiers who staged a pre-dawn attack. Men loyal to cashiered general Laurent Nkunda launched a raid on an army position near Rutshuru, the headquarters of an eponymous district in the troubled Nord-Kivu province.
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/ 13 November 2007
Thousands of refugees poured out of camps in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s violent North Kivu province on Tuesday after the army said Tutsi-dominated insurgents attacked its positions. Army troops repelled the dawn raid on their positions near Mugunga camp, killing 27 fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda.
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/ 13 November 2007
Thousands of refugees fled camps in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s violent Nord-Kivu province on Tuesday after the army said Tutsi-dominated insurgents attacked its positions nearby. ”There’s a massive movement of displaced towards Goma,” said the director of the World Food Programme in Goma.
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/ 13 November 2007
The numbers of women seeking treatment for rape in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen as a conflict that has already left four million dead over the past decade has reignited. Human rights groups describe gang rapes as commonplace and often accompanied by ”barbaric” acts of torture.
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/ 13 November 2007
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday hailed as a ”significant breakthrough” last week’s agreement by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to deal with illegal armed groups in the eastern DRC. Ban urged both Kinshasa and Kigali to ”act urgently to implement all the agreed measures”.
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/ 5 November 2007
Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) North Kivu province opened fire on refugees during a violent protest over food distributions on Monday, killing a child and wounding 11 civilians. Villagers driven from their homes three weeks ago by fighting between government soldiers and rebels had erected barricades in the town of Kiwanja.
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/ 25 October 2007
Human rights group Amnesty International accused state security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo of systematic torture and killings in a report published on Thursday. Amnesty blamed two government security forces — the special services police and the republican guard — for attacks on opponents of President Joseph Kabila.
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/ 24 October 2007
The latest clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have driven 33 000 more people from villages in Nord-Kivu province and a cholera outbreak is suspected, United Nations agencies reported on Wednesday. About 25 000 people have been uprooted in the rugged Rutshuru highlands about 50km north of the provincial capital, Goma.
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/ 23 October 2007
Recent conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Nord-Kivu province has been accompanied by an upsurge in brutal rape and often barbaric mutilations of women and girls, medical workers report. "For the whole of Nord-Kivu we normally treat 250 rape cases each month," said Jane Coyne, mission chief for Médécins Sans Frontières.
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/ 22 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army said on Monday it had resumed control of an eastern town seized by rebel forces over the weekend and the heavy fighting between the two sides had ended. Forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda confirmed the clashes in the eastern Nord-Kivu region were over, and said they were waiting to hear about possible talks.
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/ 21 October 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo’s army on Sunday gave pro-government militia fighters 48 hours to disarm or face military action as thousands more people fled renewed fighting in the eastern province of North Kivu. Explosions and gunfire rang out before dawn in the hills around Rugari, a town of tin-roofed houses near the Rwandan and Ugandan borders.
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/ 19 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army says desertions have weakened rebel forces ahead of a planned offensive against them, but rebel general Laurent Nkunda remains defiant. On Thursday the army put on show what they said were 80 deserters wearing ragtag uniforms from Nkunda’s forces.
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/ 17 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army has orders to forcibly disarm soldiers loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, President Joseph Kabila said on Wednesday, but he declined to say when the offensive would begin. ”The armed forces … have received the green light to begin, or rather to prepare, the forced disarmament of Mr Nkunda,” Kabila said.
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/ 16 October 2007
The United Nations made a last appeal on Monday for rebel Congolese soldiers to rejoin the national army. Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila had given renegade General Laurent Nkunda until Monday to send his fighters to army integration centres or see them forcibly disarmed.
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/ 15 October 2007
The volatile east of the Democratic Republic of Congo braced for renewed fighting on Sunday after rebels refused to give up arms despite a government ultimatum to disarm or face a fresh offensive. The Congolese government has given forces under renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda until Monday to disarm.
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/ 12 October 2007
Renewed fighting broke out on Friday between the regular army and renegade troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Nord-Kivu province, a local spokesperson with the United Nations mission in DRC said. "Clashes have been reported from Katsiru, a village between Mweso and Kitchanga," Monuc spokesperson Claude Cyrille said.
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/ 11 October 2007
Gunfire rang out Thursday near Mushaki in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Nord-Kivu province, a day after a renegade former general appealed for a truce with the army, the United Nations said. ”Firing is going on this morning 2km or 3km from Mushaki,” Prem Tiwari, local military spokesperson for the UN’s peacekeeping mission in DRC, said.
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/ 11 October 2007
Renegade former general Laurent Nkunda late on Wednesday called for a truce in his battle with the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo after at least 85 rebels died in four days of heavy clashes. Nkunda also offered to send 500 of his men to a transit camp pending their integration into the regular forces.
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/ 10 October 2007
More than 100 fighters, including 85 rebels, have been killed in clashes in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a top army officer said on Wednesday. Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, the army’s second in command in the eastern province, said 16 troops and 85 rebels had been killed around Karuba.
United Nations officials warned on Tuesday that fighting between rebels and army troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had displaced up to 500 000 people and left many in an ”appalling” situation. The warning came as heavy fighting between forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda and the army continued in the Nord-Kivu region on Tuesday.
Renegade ex-general Laurent Nkunda said Monday that his troops had launched an ”active offensive” against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army in the east of the country. An officer in the DRC armed force confirmed that fighting had broken out again in the Masisi highlands.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) renegade general Laurent Nkunda on Monday abandoned a month-old ceasefire and blamed government army attacks for fresh fighting in an eastern border province. His announcement heralded more conflict and humanitarian suffering in DRC’s North Kivu province, which has long been a tinderbox of ethnic tensions.
The army chiefs of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) met on Monday for 48 hours of security talks behind closed doors. Monday’s talks in the city of Lubumbashi, in the south-east of the DRC, were also due to be attended by the United Nations mission in the DRC in an ”observer” role.
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/ 24 September 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) soldiers and troops loyal to a renegade general broke an 18-day truce on Monday in the restive east of the country, officials said. ”We are in a situation of active defence,” Congolese armed forces second-in-command Colonel Delphin Kahimbi said in Nord-Kivu.