GOMA – The M23 armed group and allied Rwandan forces launched a new offensive on Wednesday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, days before the Rwandan and Congolese presidents are due to attend a crisis summit.
The United Nations meanwhile said the battle for the key city of Goma, which the M23 and Rwandan troops seized last week, had left at least 2,900 people dead — far higher than the previous death toll of 900.
Breaking a ceasefire it had declared unilaterally, due to come into effect on Tuesday, the M23, together with Rwandan troops, seized a mining town in South Kivu province, resuming its advance towards the provincial capital of Bukavu.
Intense clashes broke out at dawn Wednesday as M23 fighters and Rwandan forces seized the mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Bukavu and 70 kilometres from the province’s airport, security and humanitarian sources told AFP.
The M23 had said in declaring the ceasefire that it had “no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities”.
“This is proof that the unilateral ceasefire that has been declared was, as usual, a ploy,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told AFP.
In more than three years of fighting between the Rwanda-backed group and the Congolese army, half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been declared, before being unceremoniously broken.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his DRC counterpart Felix Tshisekedi are due to attend a summit of the eight-country East African Community and 16-member Southern African Development Community in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
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