Heavy fighting has been going on in the east of the country for four days.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, army over the weekend said it made significant advances against eastern rebel forces in four days of fierce fighting, calling on neighbouring Rwanda to help disarm the fighters.
Al Jazeera TV said the army's advances on October 27, 2013, followed clashes a day earlier with M 23 rebels, the first in two months after peace talks in Uganda broke down last week. M 23 said in a statement on Saturday that the army launched a "generalised attack" on several fronts, adding that the fighting was turning in its favour. Army Spokesman, Colonel Olivier Hamuli however said M 23 was forced out of Kibumba, a town 20 km north of Goma.
Radio France Internationale, RFI yesterday said a new front opened about 70 km north of Goma, capital of North Kivu Province. The army overran Kiwanja yesterday as M 23 rebels appeared to be retreating. According to a military expert, the latest army strategy appears aimed at splitting and weakening rebel forces. Eventually, this could force them to surrender and disarm.
Meanwhile, Rwanda's UN Ambassador on Friday, October 25, 2013, told a closed-door meeting of the Security Council that shells fired by the Congolese army landed in its territory, warning that Kigali will not tolerate such shelling and could respond militarily. In a joint statement, UN Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, Mary Robinson, and head of MONUSCO, Martin Kobler, urged restraint and called on both sides to return to the negotiating table in Uganda's capital, Kampala. On-and-off peace talks between the government and M 23 have been holding there since last December.
News agency reports yesterday quoted North Kivu Governor, Julien Paluku, as confirming the discovery of two mass graves in Kibumba. He demanded an international inquiry to find out the culprits and victims. However, the number of bodies in the two graves was not yet ascertained. A day earlier, an army Captain claimed that three mass graves were discovered in the area.
The fighting is the most serious since late August when the Congolese army and a new UN Intervention Brigade forced M 23 from positions just north of Goma. A UN spokesman in New York said about 5,000 civilians fled across the border into Rwanda.
