Rebel advance causes panic in Congolese border

20/2/2025 6:09

Volleys of gunfire rang out in

Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern border town of Uvira on

Wednesday, local sources said, as clashes broke out among allied

forces amid the advance of Rwanda-backed rebels.



Residents and officials described scenes of looting, bodies

lying in the street, and government soldiers commandeering boats

to flee across Lake Tanganyika. The local prison was also

emptied, they said.



The M23 rebels have been moving south towards Uvira, which

shares a lake border with Burundi, since they seized the

provincial capital Bukavu over the weekend - the heaviest loss

for Congo since the fall of the region's largest city Goma in

late January.



The militants' reported entry into the town of Kamanyola on

Tuesday has caused panic in Uvira, 80 km (50 miles) to the

south. Since Bukavu's fall, retreating Congolese troops have

ended up fighting allied militia called the Wazalendo who do not

want to withdraw.



"We woke up to bullets flying because of the advance of the

rebels, who are still a long way off," a local official said,

speaking on condition of anonymity.



"The forces we were counting on, the FARDC (army) and the

Wazalendo, are at odds. There are deaths and looting."



Four Uvira residents also said they heard volleys of gunfire

in the city. A humanitarian source said there were bodies lying

in the streets, around 30 bodies in the town's morgue, and more

than 100 people hospitalised with serious injuries as a result

of the violence. Reuters could not independently confirm these

figures.



Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said clashes

and armed looting in Uvira were blocking ambulances and had

forced the charity to reduce its staff in the town.



Over 500 Congolese police officers fled across the border to

Burundi, where they were disarmed, a security source, a

diplomatic source and a local official said. The interior

ministers of Burundi and Congo did not respond to requests for

comment.



The chaos underscores the Congolese authorities' weakening

control in the east, where M23's unprecedented territorial gains

and capture of valuable mining areas have stoked fears of a

wider war.



Many soldiers were piling onto boats to escape Uvira, one

security source said, adding this was "creating unrest among

people who can't get on", with "shooting in all directions".



"The rapid and uninterrupted expansion of the conflict,

particularly in South Kivu province, continues to inflict a

heavy toll on the civilian population," top U.N. aid official in

Congo, Bruno Lemarquis, said in a statement.



PRISONERS FREED



The prison in Uvira was cleared of inmates, including 228

soldiers who had been arrested for deserting, the security

source said. It was not clear if the detainees forced their way

out of the prison or had been released.



Hopes of Congo mustering a defence against the M23's advance

have flagged with the recent withdrawal of allied Burundian

troops, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Burundi has denied such

a pull-back.



Congo has asked Chad for military support to help fight the

M23, a Chadian official and a source at the Congolese presidency

said. Last week, Chad's Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul

told Reuters that the idea of Chad sending military support to

Congo was "pure speculation".



Meanwhile, fighting between rebels and the Congolese army

has also flared in neighbouring North Kivu province, an army

spokesperson, Mak Hazukay, said on Wednesday, adding that some

soldiers had abandoned their positions in the area, creating

panic.



The well-equipped M23 is the latest in a long line of ethnic

Tutsi-led rebel movements to emerge in Congo's volatile east,

renewing a conflict over power, ethnic rivalry and mineral

resources dating back to the 1990s genocide in neighbouring

Rwanda.



Rwanda denies allegations from Congo and the United Nations

that it supports the group with arms and troops. It says it is

defending itself against a Hutu militia, which it says is

fighting alongside the Congolese military.



Congo rejects Rwanda's complaints and says Rwanda has used

its proxy militias to loot its minerals such as coltan, used in

smartphones and computers.



The disorder in the east has fuelled a sense of worry and

panic 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away in the capital Kinshasa, where

some residents are looking to move their families abroad amid

open talk of a coup.