DR Congo - North Kivu

Congo accuses Rwanda of planning an attack

Thursday 09 October 2008

Congo has accused Rwanda of preparing an "imminent" attack on the Congolese town of Goma. FRANCE 24's Arnaud Zajtman reports that fighting between the Congolese army and a rebel group with suspected links to Rwanda has resumed in North Kivu.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's envoy to the United Nations called Wednesday for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss what he called an "imminent" Rwandan attack on the eastern DRC city of Goma.
   
Speaking to AFP, Atoki Ileka said DRC authorities had "observed concentrations of Rwandan troops in the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi," and that this suggested that an attack on Goma, located just across the frontier, was "imminent."
   
Goma is the capital of Nord-Kivu province, which is at the center of renewed fighting between rebel and government forces that broke out August 28 in the east of the DRC.
   
"We have asked the Security Council to put the necessary pressure on Rwanda to prevent a new (Rwandan) aggression against DRC," Ileka said, adding that troops in Rwandan uniforms had seized the Rumangabo military camp near Goma early Wednesday.
   
Forces loyal to DRC's rebel ethnic Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda, however, said they had seized the camp, located about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the Goma.
   
Several military sources in DRC, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the capture of Rumangabo, and DRC army general Marcellin Lukama confirmed that several clashes across the Nord-Kivu province had erupted.
   
Renewed fighting broke out August 28 in eastern DRC, with government troops and Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) forces violating the ceasefire reached under the Goma peace accord in January.
   
On Sunday, Kinshasa accused neighbouring Rwanda of "visibly supporting" the rebel CNDP forces, whose leader Nkunda last week called on all Congolese people to "stand up" to the national government.