San Francisco Frontiers - UN steps up troop alert as DR Congo rebels take more territory

The M23 rebel fighters had seized control of two localities along the strategic RN2 highway in the eastern province of North Kivu, local officials and witnesses told AFP by telephone.

Rebels had also been seen at Rugari, just 30 kilometres (20 miles) down the RN2 from provincial capital Goma, which it links with the north and Uganda.

"Kiwanja and Rutshuru-centre are in M23 hands," said civil society representative Jacques Niyonzima.

"The rebels have held two meetings and told local people to go about their work and those displaced to return to their villages, saying security was now guaranteed," he said from Kiwanja.

A general hospital official in Rutshuru added: "There were several wounded in Kiwanja after a small amount of resistance".

"Calm has returned. People are moving about and shops are opening," the official said, asking not to be named.

- Hostile acts -

The MONUSCO mission condemned "the hostile acts of M23", the rebel group, and called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

The DRC army had made no comment by mid-afternoon Saturday on the latest rebel reports.

But the MONUSCO said on Twitter it was providing "air support, intelligence and equipment" as well as medical assistance.

The peacekeepers said they were "mobilised in support" of DRC's army after residents reported at least ten people dead since Sunday and dozens more injured near RN2.

The MONUSCO said it had set up an "operations coordination centre" with the army and was carrying out reconnaissance and surveillance flights, but did not provide further details about the alert level.

M23, a mostly Congolese Tutsi group, resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years.

It has since captured swathes of territory in North Kivu, including the key town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June.

The frontline between Congolese troops and M23 rebels had been calm in recent weeks until last week, when clashes erupted again.

Last Sunday, M23 fighters captured the village of Ntamugenga in the Rutshuru area. It lies four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the RN2 where the clashes spread on Thursday.

The UN humanitarian affairs office in the DRC said this week around 34,500 people had fled the Rutshuru region.

The group's resurgence has destabilised regional relations in central Africa, with the DRC accusing its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the militia.

Rwanda denies the charges and counters that DRC works with a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis, which Kinshasa also denies.

A report by independent UN experts seen by AFP in August found that Kigali had provided direct support to the M23.

And this week a US representative to the United Nations spoke of Rwandan defence forces providing assistance to the M23.

M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before a joint Congolese-UN offensive drove it out.

The militia is one of scores of armed groups that roam eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars that flared late last century.

Z.Phillips--SFF