San Francisco Frontiers - Congo refugees recount death and chaos as war reignites

"I have 10 kids, but I'm here with only three. I don't know what happened to the other seven, or their father," Akilimali Mirindi, 40, told AFP in the Nyarushishi refugee camp in Rwanda's Rusizi district.

Around 1,000 Congolese have ended up in this camp after renewed fighting broke out in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month.

The M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda, has seized vast swathes of eastern DRC over the past year and is once again on the march, taking another key city, Uvira, in recent days.

Thousands have fled as civilians are again caught in the crossfire between the M23, Congolese forces and their allies.

Mirindi was living in Kamanyola near the Rwanda border when bombs started falling, destroying her house.

"Many people died, young and old. I saw corpses as we fled, jumping over some of them. I made a decision to cross into Rwanda with the rest," she said.

Trump hosted the presidents of Rwanda and DRC, Paul Kagame and Felix Tshisekedi, on December 4 for an agreement aimed at ending the conflict, but the new offensive was already underway even as they were meeting.

"It's clear there is no understanding between Kagame and Tshisekedi... If they don't reach an understanding, war will go on," said Thomas Mutabazi, 67, in the refugee camp.

"Bombs were raining down on us from different directions, some from FARDC (Congolese army) and Burundian soldiers, some from M23 as they returned fire," he said.

"We had to leave our families and our fields. We don't know anything, yet the brunt of war is faced by us and our families."

- 'Bombs following us' -

The camp sits on a picturesque hill flanked by tea plantations, well-stocked by NGOs from the United Nations, World Food Programme and others.

There are dormitories and a football pitch for the children, but the mostly women and children at the camp spoke of having their homes and fields stripped bare or destroyed by soldiers.

Jeanette Bendereza, 37, had already fled her home in Kamanyola once this year -- during the earlier M23 offensive, escaping to Burundi in February with her four children.

"We came back when they told us peace had returned. We found M23 in charge," she said.

Then the violence restarted.

"We were used to a few bullets, but within a short time bombs started falling from Burundian fighters. That's when we started running."

Burundi has sent troops to help the DRC and finds itself increasingly threatened as the M23 takes towns and villages along its border.

"I ran with neighbours to Kamanyola... We could hear the bombs following us... I don't know where my husband is now," Bendereza said, adding she had lost her phone in the chaos.

Olinabangi Kayibanda, 56, had tried to hold out in Kamanyola as the fighting began.

"But when we started seeing people dying and others losing limbs due to bombs... even children were dying, so we decided to flee," he said.

"I saw a neighbour of mine dead after her house was bombed. She died along with her two children in the house. She was also pregnant."

B.Turner--SFF