Fresh fighting broke out yesterday in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), wreaking panic among civilians even as regional leaders gathered in Nairobi to try to rekindle dialogue and hammer out a road map to peace.
Clashes erupted between DR Congo troops and renegade general Laurent Nkunda’s rebels around 15km from the regional capital Goma, several sources said.
An AFP reporter said thousands of displaced people fled the nearby camp of Kibati, as gunshots were heard and helicopters flew overhead.
“The FARDC [government forces] have used heavy weapons from Kibati, mortars and machine guns. The fighting is continuing,” UN military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said.
DR Congo President Joseph Kabila’s spokesman accused UN peacekeepers of doing nothing to stop killings by rebels, following reports by Human Rights Watch that at least 20 civilians had been killed on Thursday.
“People are being slaughtered and MONUC [UN mission in DR Congo] did nothing,” Kudura Kasongo said.
A senior Western official attending the summit admitted that “more should have been done,” but said he remained confident that MONUC’s Indian contingent could prevent Nkunda from capturing Goma, even without backing from routed government forces.
The presidents of DR Congo, Rwanda and Kenya were among those attending the summit, as well as the UN’s newly-appointed envoy to Congo, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.
One of the main goals of the meeting is to rekindle dialogue between Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, whose government has been accused of supporting the rebels, an allegation it has repeatedly denied.
But Louis Michel, the EU’s commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, said direct talks between the two were not on the agenda.
At a meeting in Nairobi a year ago almost to the day, their two countries committed to a plan aimed at stabilizing eastern DR Congo, but both sides have failed to deliver.
Under that agreement, Kinshasa was supposed to disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels wanted for a 1994 genocide and operating in eastern DR Congo, while Kigali was to stop supporting armed groups, including rebels using Rwanda as a staging ground.
Kagame has vehemently denied any involvement in the latest round of fighting and lambasted what he said was a misguided approach by an international community shirking responsibility.
Kinshasa has never exercised any real authority in eastern DR Congo and its regular troops fled in the face of Laurent Nkunda’s offensive, allowing the rebels to seize key towns and threaten the regional capital Goma.
MONUC is the UN’s largest peacekeeping force with 17,000 troops, but it has only a few hundred in the areas affected by the latest violence and has been unable to curb the fighting and displacement.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from