The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group has pushed south from Goma, the border city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo that it captured this week, and declared its intention to remain in the city, as fears grow of a major regional war.
“We are here in Goma to stay,” Corneille Nangaa, the head of the Congo River Alliance, a coalition of militias that includes M23, said at a press conference in Goma. “We are going to continue the march until Kinshasa,” he added, referring to Congo’s capital 1,000 miles away.
Earlier, Rwanda’s ambassador-at-large for the Great Lakes region, Vincent Karega, said the M23 advance would continue and it was possible the fighters could push beyond the country’s east.
International calls for restraint appear to have had little impact on the ground in DRC. Local sources told Agence France-Presse that fighters from M23 had seized two districts in South Kivu province as they advanced towards the provincial capital, Bukavu, the second largest city in eastern DRC.
In a late-night address on Wednesday, the Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, called on young people to enlist in the army “massively” and vowed “a vigorous and coordinated response” to the rebel advance.
On Monday, rebel fighters and Rwandan soldiers swept into Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and a regional hub for displaced people, in the biggest escalation since 2012 of a decades-old conflict.
Congo’s army has its main line of defence in the city of Kavumu. If the rebels advance beyond Kavumu, Bukavu could be threatened. Some of the Congolese troops driven out by M23 in Goma fled to Bukavu.
In his first public address since the fall of Goma, Tshisekedi said a “vigorous and coordinated response against these terrorists and their sponsors” was under way. “Enlist massively in the army because you are the spearhead of our country,” he said.
The president criticised what he described as the “silence and inaction” of the international community, calling it an affront in the face of an “unprecedented worsening of the security situation” that he said could lead straight to an escalation in the broader Great Lakes region.
The M23 rebels in eastern DRC are backed by 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts, far more than in 2012 when the group briefly captured Goma.
A sustained and successful push into South Kivu would put the territory under rebel control for the first time since the end of two major wars that ran from 1996 to 2003, in which millions of civilians died, mostly from malnutrition and disease. Troops from neighbouring Burundi, which has had hostile relations with Rwanda, support Congolese troops in South Kivu, meaning the risk of a wider conflict would increase.
Rwanda is facing mounting international pressure over its role in the fighting. The US said it was “deeply troubled” by escalation of the conflict, Germany cancelling a planned meeting with Rwandan officials next month, and the UK told Kigali that it was putting $1bn (£800m) in global aid “under threat”.
The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, landed in Rwanda on Thursday to discuss the crisis. His ministry said he would call for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from DRC. Barrot had been in Kinshasa earlier in the day to meet Tshisekedi.
Tshisekedi snubbed an emergency virtual summit called by the East African Community bloc to discuss the conflict in his country. At the meeting, attended by Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, leaders called for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution through talks between DRC and armed groups.
DRC is rich in gold and other minerals such as cobalt, coltan, tantalum and tin used in batteries and electronics. Kinshasa has accused Rwanda of waging the offensive to profit from the region’s mineral wealth, a claim backed by UN experts who say Kigali has thousands of troops in its neighbour and “de facto control” over the M23.
Rwanda has denied the accusations and does not admit to military involvement in its neighbour. Kagame has said Rwanda’s support for the M23 is aimed at destroying the FDLR, a DRC-based armed group created by former Hutu leaders who massacred Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
