© Guerchom NDEBO
A member of the DRCongo armed forces during a patrol in Rutshuru, regarding 70 km from Goma, following clashes with M23 rebels, April 3, 2022
“The enemy is there, right next to it…”, points out a captain who has just arrived with reinforcements from the Congolese army on the scene of recent fighting once morest the M23 rebels, in the east of the Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“I have deployed elements everywhere, we are changing tactics on the ground”, also explains Colonel Honoré Rindugu who, at the beginning of last week, defended with his men and the help of the Ugandan army the strategic city. of Bunagana, on the border with Uganda, which threatened to fall into the hands of the “March 23 Movement”.
© Guerchom NDEBO
Congolese soldiers in the streets of Rutshuru following clashes with M23 rebels, April 4, 2022
“We make rounds near enemy areas, so as not to be surprised,” he adds.
Coming from a former Congolese Tutsi rebellion, the M23, also called the “Congolese Revolutionary Army”, was defeated in 2013 by the army but reappeared at the end of last year, accusing the Kinshasa authorities of not having respected commitments on the demobilization of its combatants.
© Kenan AUGEARD
Location of Rutshuru in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
On March 28 and 29, it left its high altitude bastions to come and attack army positions, in particular on the hills of Runyoni and Tchanzu, where eight blue helmets died in the still unexplained crash of their helicopter.
The rebels withdrew from points briefly occupied on the road leading from the Ugandan border to Goma, vital for supplying the capital of North Kivu.
But they remain on several hills, including that of Bugusa, less than 5 km from the road, considered one of the hot spots of the new front line.
After two days of heavy fighting, which caused the flight of tens of thousands of villagers to the center of Rutshuru and to Uganda, they said they had declared a “unilateral ceasefire”, claiming to want “a settlement peace of the crisis which pits (them) once morest the government”.
In a statement by its spokesperson, filmed on a hill in the region, the M23 seemed to be taking the lead, blaming the army for any new fighting.
– “Who to trust?” –
During the council of ministers on Friday, the Congolese government assured that operations to dislodge the rebels would continue. He also recognized a “failure” during the last fighting “at the level of the command of the operational sector of North Kivu, which command has just been relieved”, specified the report of the council.
At the Rwanguba bridge, on the main Bunagana-Goma road, General Peter Cirimwami, appointed to take the helm of this command, has been seen these days supervising the units in charge of monitoring the mountains where the rebels are.
“The causes of the weakness (during the fighting at the end of March) are multiple. The chiefs wanted to manage everything on their own, to earn more money, and moreover here, we do not know who to trust, Rutshuru being an old stronghold rebel,” a senior military official said on condition of anonymity.
Various testimonies also reported soldiers who, faced with the rebel advance, fled the fighting with their wife and children, dragging behind them hundreds of panicked villagers.
The difficulties are also “logistical”, considers for his part General Patience Mushid Yav, divisional commissioner of the Congolese police, for whom the police must support the army.
“We must tell those who have fled to come back, so that there are many of us to fight the enemy”, urges the number 2 of the police in the DRC, also calling on the population to cooperate with the security forces.
In recent days, along the 30 km separating the center of Rutshuru from the border, the positions of the Congolese army have been reinforced, with soldiers equipped with heavy and light weapons.
“Reinforcements have arrived, the army is ready to respond to any eventuality,” said Colonel Muhindo Lwanzo, chief of staff to the military administrator of Rutshuru territory. This war, he says, “concerns the whole nation”.
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