The conquest of the Congolese town of Kitshanga, in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by the rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23), has generated a new crisis of displaced people in the province of North Kivu, ravaged for months by fighting between the group and the Congolese Army.
The neighboring town of Mwesso has become a makeshift shelter for hundreds of families who escaped from Kitshanga at the last moment and for the last four days have had no access to drinking water, food, basic hygiene or medical care, NGOs warn Radio Okapi. They warn that five cases of diarrhea have already been confirmed among the newly arrived children.
Kishanga has become this weekend a «ghost town» where the M23 is already openly patrolling. According to local sources, the rebels are keeping «secluded» approximately 5,000 people who remained in the city, ten percent of the total population. The rest have sought refuge in other towns in the area, starting with Mwesso, or in a base of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, which houses some 400 people.
Action Against Hunger has called for the urgent intervention of community leaders to facilitate the arrival of aid not only to Mwesso, but also to other towns that have received in recent days the thousands of refugees from Kitshanga such as Kalembe, Kashuga, Muhongozi or Pinga.
The M23 activity is at the epicenter of a diplomatic conflict between DRC and neighboring Rwanda. The Congolese government has accused the Rwandan authorities of providing support to the rebels, something that Kigali has strongly denied. These frictions, however, have greatly hindered the arrival of aid to the population of one of the most conflictive provinces of the entire continent, where dozens of armed groups operate.
Relations between the DRC and Rwanda have been in crisis since the massive arrival in eastern DRC of Rwandan Hutus accused of having massacred the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. After a certain period of diplomatic relaxation, the conflict regained intensity in May, when the Congolese government summoned the Rwandan ambassador to denounce the country’s alleged support to the M23.
The latest accusation launched last Saturday by the Congolese Army against Rwanda is an example of this. The military assures that «Rwandan special forces» have crossed the border with the intention of «perpetrating a new massacre against the Tutsi population of the Democratic Republic of Congo» and blaming it on the Congolese Army.
In fact, the Congolese Army directly links the alleged deployment of these forces to the M23 advance into Masisi territory, where Kitshanga is located. According to the military, the rebel seizure of the city would have served the Rwandan forces as a cover to enter the area.
The Congolese Army, in a communiqué reported by 7sur7, denounces exactly «the presence of an expeditionary corps of Rwandan special forces» to commit «another massacre directed against Congolese Tutsis» with the double intention of «attributing these despicable acts to the FARDC and finding a convincing alibi to justify before international opinion the presence of Rwandan troops of aggression in the DRC».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
