Insurgent forces backed by Rwanda have captured the city of Masisi within the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in accordance with varied stories.
That is the second city seized by the M23 group in as many days within the mineral-rich North Kivu province.
The group has taken management of huge swathes of japanese DR Congo since 2021, forcing lots of of hundreds of individuals to flee their properties.
Angola has been trying to mediate talks between President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame. However these broke down final month.
“It’s with dismay that we study of the seize of Masisi centre by the M23,” Alexis Bahunga, a member of North Kivu provincial meeting, advised the AFP information company.
He mentioned this “plunges the territory right into a critical humanitarian disaster” and urged the federal government to strengthen the capability of the military within the area.
One resident advised AFP that the M23 had held a gathering of the city’s inhabitants, saying that they had “come to liberate the nation”.
The Congolese authorities haven’t but commented on the lack of the city.
It isn’t clear how many individuals had been killed within the combating between the M23 and the military and pro-government militias. The city was reported to be quiet on Sunday.
Masisi, which has a inhabitants of about 40,000, is the capital of the territory of the identical identify.
It’s about 80km (50 miles) north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, which the M23 briefly occupied in 2012.
On Friday, the M23 captured the close by city of Katale.
Final 12 months, there have been fears that the M23 would once again march on Goma, a metropolis of about two million folks.
Nevertheless, there was then a lull in combating till early December when combating resumed.
In July, Rwanda didn’t deny a UN report saying it had about 4,000 soldiers combating alongside the M23 in DR Congo.
It accused the Congolese authorities of not doing sufficient to sort out many years of battle within the east of the nation. Rwanda has beforehand mentioned the authorities in DR Congo had been working with a few of these accountable for the 1994 Rwandan genocide in opposition to ethnic Tutsis and reasonable Hutus.
The M23, shaped as an offshoot of one other insurgent group, started working in 2012 ostensibly to guard the Tutsi inhabitants within the east of DR Congo which had lengthy complained of persecution and discrimination.
Nevertheless, Rwanda’s critics accuse it of utilizing the M23 to loot japanese DR Congo’s minerals comparable to gold, cobalt and tantalum, that are used to make cellphones and batteries for electrical automobiles.
Final month, DR Congo mentioned it was suing Apple over the usage of such “blood minerals”, prompting the tech big to say it had stopped getting provides from each international locations.
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