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Friday 21 Feb 2025
LOCAL EDITION
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LOCAL EDITION
A soldier of the M23 movement looks through a military scope recovered among abandoned military items at the port of Goma, on February 18, 2025. (Photo/AFP)
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has asked Chad for military support to help fight a spiralling insurgency by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in its eastern provinces, Reuters news agency said, citing a Chadian official and a source at the Congolese presidency.
DRC's Minister of Regional Integration met with Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno on Tuesday on behalf of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, Chad's presidency said in a Facebook post.
Details on the discussions were not disclosed. A Chadian official with knowledge of the discussions said Chad was considering a request for support from DRC, but had not yet made a decision on the request.
A source at the DRC presidency said on Wednesday that Kinshasa had requested military and diplomatic support from Chad.
Neither source provided further detail. They declined to be named for confidentiality reasons.
Chad's government spokesman Gassim Cherif did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Tshisekedi's spokesperson, Tina Salama, said she did not have any information on the matter.
The potential support has not been formally discussed, but "nothing is ruled out," a Chadian official said.
Last week, Chad's Foreign Affairs Minister told Reuters that sending military support to DRC was "pure speculation".
M23 rebels move south towards Uvira
Meanwhile, volleys of gunfire rang out in DRC's eastern border town of Uvira on Wednesday, local sources said, as clashes broke out among allied forces.
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 DRC since the fall of the region's largest city Goma in late January.
The rebels' reported entry into the town of Kamanyola on Tuesday has caused panic in Uvira, 80 km to the south. Since Bukavu's fall, retreating DRC's troops have ended up fighting allied militia called the Wazalendo who do not want to withdraw.
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.
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 DRC 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 DRC did not respond to requests for comm ent.
The chaos underscores the DRC 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".
Uganda joins fray
Hopes of DRC 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. Meanwhile, Uganda joined the fray after its army on Tuesday said it had deployed troops in the town of Bunia in eastern DRC to fight local militias.
Meanwhile, fighting between rebels and the DRC's 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 DRC'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 DRC 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 DRC's military.
DRC 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 away in the capital Kinshasa, where some residents are looking to move their families abroad amid open talk of a coup.
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Source: TRT
