The rebels supported by Rwanda “occupied” a second big city in East Congo rich in minerals, the government of Congo announced on Sunday, while the M23 rebels positioned themselves at the Governor’s office in Bukavu and were committed to cleaning After “the old regime”.
The journalists of the Associated Press saw dozens of residents applauding the rebels after entering Bukavu after a walk from Goma, a city of 2 million people they seized last month.
The rebels have seen little resistance from government forces against the unprecedented expansion of their scope after their years of fighting. The Congo government has promised to restore order in Bukavu, a city of 1.3 million people, but there were no sign of soldiers. Many were seen fleeing Saturday alongside thousands of civilians.
The M23s are the largest of more than 100 armed groups in the running of billions of dollars in mineral wealth in eastern Congo, which is essential for a large part of world technology. Rebels are supported by around 4,000 soldiers from neighboring Rwanda, according to United Nations experts.
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The fighting has moved more than 6 million people in the region, creating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
The rebels have just “clean” the disorder
Bernard Maheshe Byumungu, one of the leaders of the M23 who was sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council for Rights violations, was held before the office of the South Kivu Governor in Bukavu and told residents they lived in a “jungle”.
“We are going to clean up the disorder left of the old regime,” said Byumungu, like some in the little crowd of young men applauded the rebels to “go to Kinshasa”, the capital of Congo, nearly 1,000 miles from there.
The M23 has not announced any Bukavu crisis, unlike its announcement when taking Goma, which had brought a rapid international conviction. M23 spokesperson did not answer questions on Sunday.
The Congo Ministry of Communications in a press release on social media recognized for the first time that Bukavu had been “occupied” and declared that the national government “did everything possible to restore order and territorial integrity “In the region.
A resident of Bukavu, Blaise Byumungu, said that the rebels walked in the city which had been “abandoned by all the authorities and without any loyalist force”.
“Does the government are waiting for them to take care of other cities to take measures? This is cowardice,” added Byamungu.
The M23 rebels enter the second largest city in eastern Congo, Bukavu, and take control of the administrative office of the South Kivu Province on Sunday. (AP photo / January Barhahiga)
Fears of regional escalation
Unlike 2012, when the M23 briefly seized Goma and withdrew after international pressure, analysts said the rebels this time looked at political power.
Fighting in Congo have links with an ethnic conflict of decade. The M23 says he defends ethnic Tutsis in the Congo. Rwanda said the Tutsis were persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda. Many Hutus fled to the Congo after the genocide and founded democratic forces for the release of the Rwanda militia group.
Rwanda says that the militia group is “fully integrated” in the Congolese army, which denies it.
But the new face of the M23 in the region – Corneille Nangaa – is not Tutsi, giving the group “a new Congolese face more diverse, because M23 has always been considered an armed group supported by Rwanda defending Tutsi minorities” , according to Christian Moleka, political scientist of the Congolese reflection group Dypol.
13 headers of United Nations peace, allied soldiers who died in the Congo while the M23 rebels make gains in the key city
Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, whose government said on Saturday that Bukavu remained under his control, warned the risk of regional conflict expansion.
The forces of the Congo were supported in Goma by troops from South Africa and in Bukavu by Burundi troops. But the president of Burundi, Evariste Ndayishimiye, seemed to suggest on social networks that his country would not retaliate in the fighting.
The conflict was raised on the agenda of the African Union in Ethiopia during the weekend, with the UN secretary general António Guterres warning that he risked a spiral in a regional conflagration.
However, African leaders and the international community hesitated to take decisive measures against M23 or Rwanda, who has one of the most powerful soldiers in Africa. Most continue to call a ceasefire and a dialogue between the Congo and the rebels.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups which includes the M23, said that it was determined to “defend” the people of Bukavu.
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“We call on the population to keep control of their city and not to give in to panic,” the spokesman for the Alliance, Lawrence Kanyuka said on Saturday.
