(Reuters) – Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have entered the centre of the eastern Congo town of Walikale, a local activist and an M23 source said on Thursday, expanding the insurgents’ presence deep into the Congolese interior despite renewed calls for a ceasefire.
Their entry into Walikale, which is in an area rich in minerals including tin, followed fighting on Wednesday with Democratic Republic of Congo’s army and allied militias on the outskirts of the town.
The town’s capture would leave the rebels, who took eastern Congo’s two largest cities earlier this year, in control of a road linking four eastern Congo provinces and within 400 km (250 miles) of Kisangani, the country’s fourth-biggest city.
“The rebels are now visible in the centre of the city,” said Fiston Misona, a civil society activist in Walikale. “There are at least seven people wounded who are at the general hospital.”
An M23 source said the rebels were in full control of the town.
A spokesperson for Congo’s army did not respond to requests for comment about the situation in Walikale.
The rebels’ move on Walikale, a town of about 15,000 people, came despite calls on Tuesday by Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame for an immediate ceasefire after their first direct talks since M23 stepped up its offensive in January.
The conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, has quickly become eastern Congo’s worst conflict since a 1998-2003 war that drew in multiple neighbouring countries.
Rwanda has been supporting the ethnic Tutsi-led rebels by providing arms and sending troops, according to the United Nations, Western governments and independent experts.
Rwanda has denied backing M23 and says its military has been acting in self defence against Congo’s army and a militia founded by some of the perpetrators of the genocide.
Congo and M23 had been expected to have their first direct talks on Tuesday in Angola after Tshisekedi’s government reversed its longstanding refusal to speak to the rebels.
But M23 pulled out of the talks on Monday, blaming European Union sanctions imposed on some of its leaders and Rwandan officials.
(Reporting by Congo newsroom; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Comments