Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi has stressed that his country’s military will respond “strongly” to the advance of Rwandan-backed fighters in the country’s ever-volatile east, criticizing the international community’s “silence and inaction.”
A weeks-long offensive by M23 militants has seized much of eastern Congo, including much of the main city of Goma. The attack has prompted calls for crisis talks and warnings of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
The mineral-rich east of the country has been plagued by decades of conflict between numerous armed groups, some of which are linked to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
“A strong and coordinated response against these terrorists and their supporters is underway,” Tshisekedi said late Wednesday in his first comments since the crisis began.
The international community’s “silence and inaction” was an “insult” to the “unprecedented deterioration of the security situation,” he said in a televised address.
He warned that the advance of Rwanda-backed fighters could lead to a “direct escalation of tensions” across the Great Lakes region.
He had previously told AFP that local sources had said fighters backed by the Kigali government had taken control of two districts in South Kivu province. The Congolese army has yet to issue a statement on the M23’s latest advance.
Days of fierce clashes have left more than 100 people dead and nearly 1,000 wounded, but calm has returned to Goma, where hospitals have exceeded capacity, according to an AFP tally, and residents are carefully evacuating their homes.
“Today we are not afraid,” Jean de Dieu, a resident of Goma, a city of one million people between Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border, told AFP by telephone. Call for a ‘peaceful solution’
Despite international pressure to resolve the crisis, President Tshisekedi refused on Wednesday to take part in crisis talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
After the virtual summit, the East African Community (EAC) regional bloc called for a “peaceful resolution to the conflict” and urged the DRC to “negotiate directly with all parties, including the M23.”
In a late-night tweet, Kagame warned South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who tweeted condolences after the deaths of 13 South African soldiers in the DRC, that his country “cannot act as a broker or facilitator of peace.”
The soldiers were part of the Southern African Development Community for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (SAMIDRC), but Kagame said the community “has no room to intervene in this situation.”
Angola, which mediated failed talks last month, also called for urgent dialogue between Congolese and Rwandan leaders in Luanda and confirmed that Tshisekedi arrived in the city on Wednesday.
The fighting has worsened an already severe humanitarian crisis in the region. They have caused severe food and water shortages and forced half a million people to flee their homes this month, according to the United Nations. ‘Cut off from the world’
M23 fighters and Rwandan troops entered Goma on Sunday and seized the airport in the key minerals trading center. An AFP reporter confirmed they were the only people remaining in the city center.
