The M23 rebels, supposed to begin a withdrawal from their positions on February 28 according to a new timetable adopted ten days ago in Addis Ababa, seized additional villages in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday February 26 ( DRC), we learned from concordant sources.
In addition, three children were killed and five others injured at the end of the week by the explosions of abandoned machinery on the battlefields between this rebellion and the Congolese army.
According to residents, the fighting intensified in Masisi, a territory northwest of Goma, where the M23 seized Thursday, February 23, the city of Mushaki, about thirty kilometers from the provincial capital of North Kivu. . The M23 controls Mushaki-Centre "but has not advanced (...) because we are there", assured a military source.
Further north in the same territory, towards Mweso, "the rebels took control [of the villages] of Busumba, Gashungo, Rugongwe", described an administrative official. “There were fights. Several hills are in the hands of the M23. The population is fleeing,” testified a civil society representative.
Kinshasa accuses Kigali
The predominantly Tutsi rebellion of the M23, dormant for almost ten years, took up arms again at the end of 2021 and has since seized large swathes of North Kivu territory. Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of supporting it, which has been corroborated by UN experts, although Kigali denies it.
Several diplomatic initiatives have been launched, without success so far. A mini-summit organized in November 2022 in Luanda had notably ordered a withdrawal of the M23 from its positions, which did not take place. On February 17 in Addis Ababa, East African leaders adopted a new timetable, calling for a "withdrawal of all armed groups" by March 30.
Saturday evening in front of the press, the Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christophe Lutundula, detailed the stages of this withdrawal spread over thirty days. "The first phase starts on February 28, which is Tuesday," he pointed out.
The explosions of devices in which children were victims took place in Rutshuru, north of Goma. On Friday, six children were looking for wood in Rangira when they found an unexploded shell, said Ambroise Byamungu, local secretary. They "started playing" with the device, which exploded. One child died, the other five were injured and are still hospitalized.
The next day, about 60 kilometers away, two children herding goats near a former army position near Bambo found a grenade. "Thinking it was a lawyer, they picked it up," a hospital source said. The grenade exploded, the two children died.
