The M23 rebels have resumed attacks on armed forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a two-day lull in fighting.
Rebel fighters struck at dawn on Tuesday near the village of Ihusi, located 40km (25 miles) from a strategic military airport in Kavumu and about 70km (43 miles) from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.
The M23, which claims to protect ethnic Tutsis, started advancing on South Kivu after taking control of North Kivu’s Goma in a bloody raid that killed thousands last month, resuming hostilities despite calls from 24 regional leaders for an immediate ceasefire.
Bukavu has been preparing for an M23 offensive for several days, shuttering schools on Friday as residents began to flee and shops closed over fears of an imminent attack.
Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, who was reporting from Nairobi in Kenya, said “anxious” residents of Bukavu were waiting to find out if “M23 and its Rwandan supporters” would succeed in advancing on Bukavu.
Meanwhile, people fleeing a displacement camp located west of North Kivu’s capital, Goma, claimed an M23 colonel had entered the site on Sunday and ordered them to leave within three days.
The M23 released a statement on Monday denying those accusations, saying that people were voluntarily leaving the Bulengo camp, returning to what it called their “now-secured homes in liberated areas”.
Many people have been living for up to two years in the “swelling camp” and did not know if they had homes to which they could return, Webb added. “Most of them appear now to be packing up and beginning the journey. Some others have said they will wait and see if and when they are forced to leave,” he said.
On Saturday, 24 East and Southern African leaders called for an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire in DRC within five days, fearing the conflict would spill over into neighbouring countries.
The UN says conflict has forced 6.7 million people from their homes within the country, most from North and South Kivu provinces where violence and insecurity have increased since 2021, with the resurgence of the M23 rebels.
The latest violence has forced more than 500,000 from their homes since the beginning of the year, placing overcrowded and under-resourced displacement camps under extreme pressure.
The UN estimated earlier this month that clashes between the M23 and Congolese forces in Goma had left nearly 3,000 dead.
DRC accuses Rwanda and the rebels of looting the country’s resources, which include vast deposits of rare earths. Rwanda denies those allegations.
“We categorically oppose the DRC’s attempts to portray Rwanda as being responsible for its instability in the eastern DRC,” Rwanda’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, James Ngango, told an emergency meeting of the Human Rights Council.
“What is clear, however, is the imminent threat the current situation poses to Rwanda. Following the fall of Goma, new evidence has come to light regarding an imminent, large-scale attack against Rwanda,” he said, adding that Kinshasa and its allies had stockpiled weapons in and around Goma airport.
CODECO attack
Elsewhere in DRC, fighters from the CODECO armed group, one of a myriad of groups fighting over land and resources in the east, killed at least 35 civilians in an attack on the Djaiba group of villages in the Djugu territory of Ituri province.
Jean Vianney, head of the group of villages, said the attacks started at 8pm on Monday, with many people “burnt to death in their homes”.
Webb said some officials in the area were reporting that as many as 50 may have been killed, including children. The armed group dominates a section of Ituri province, controlling many of the gold mines, he said.
The UN has in the past accused CODECO of attacks against other communities, including Hema herders, that could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The majority of residents in Djugu territory are Hema.
