Rwanda aligned rebels close in on key City in Congo

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have made rapid advances through eastern Congo, killing at least 13 peacekeepers, forcing thousands of civilians to flee and grounding flights.
The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have made rapid advances through eastern Congo, killing at least 13 peacekeepers, forcing thousands of civilians to flee and grounding flights.

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Rwanda has been urged to withdraw its advancing troops from the outskirts of Goma, a mineral-rich city in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Britain, the EU, and the United Nations have piled pressure on the African nation over its backing of the M23 rebels, which Kigali has denied.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, condemned Rwanda’s military presence in DRC as a “clear violation of international law”, and demanded the nation withdraw its troops from Congolese territory, while Britain called for an end to attacks on peacekeepers.

“This is a frontal assault, a declaration of war that no longer hides behind diplomatic artifice,” Congolese foreign minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Sunday, demanding that Rwandan politicians and armed forces face sanctions including asset freezes and travel bans.

On Sunday, Washington condemned “in the strongest terms” attacks by Rwandan and M23 fighters in the eastern DRC, calling urgently for a ceasefire.

M23, the latest in a long line of Tutsi-led rebel movements, says it exists to protect DRC’s ethnic Tutsi population.

DRC’s government, however, sees the rebels as proxies for Kigali’s ambitions in the region and believes M23 has set out to take control of the flow of precious minerals, including gold, diamonds, cobalt, tin ore cassiterite and coltan – which is used in the production of smartphones.

For more than a year, M23 has controlled DRC’s coltan-mining region of Rubaya, generating an estimated $800,000 (£640,800) per month through a production tax, according to the UN.

The rebels, three years into their current insurgency, now control more Congolese territory than ever before and have vowed to seize the city of Goma.

Aid agencies are concerned about the conflict’s impact on civilians, warning that the fighting will deepen what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“Several sites on the outskirts of Goma, sheltering more than 300,000 displaced people, were completely emptied in the space of a few hours,” the office of the UN humanitarian coordinator said in a statement.

Scores of displaced women and children fled the Kanyaruchinya camp, one of the largest in eastern DRC, as fighting drew near on Saturday.

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