Bodies in the streets as M23 consolidates control of DR Congo city

M23 fighters combed the streets of Uvira in eastern DR Congo on Thursday to flush out remaining enemy combatants a day after taking over strategic parts of the eastern city near Burundi, security and local sources told AFP. Businesses have been closed for several days, and only a few motorcycles were out in the streets, […]

M23 fighters combed the streets of Uvira in eastern DR Congo on Thursday to flush out remaining enemy combatants a day after taking over strategic parts of the eastern city near Burundi, security and local sources told AFP.

Businesses have been closed for several days, and only a few motorcycles were out in the streets, while sporadic shots still rang out, local civil society representatives said.

Around 10 bodies were collected from the streets between Wednesday and Thursday, according to local sources and witnesses.

“Yesterday we collected at least nine bodies and today two on the avenue leading to Saint Paul’s Cathedral,” a civil society representative told AFP, but gave no other details.

As it did in two provincial capitals, Goma and Bukavu, seized in January and February after a lightning offensive, the M23, backed by Rwanda and its army, is seeking to take control of neighbourhoods in Uvira where militia who have not already fled have taken refuge.

The city hall, provincial governor’s office and the border post to Burundi already fell to the M23 on Wednesday after most Congolese forces fled in the previous days.

On Thursday, almost all parts of the city suffered power cuts, with many residents reliant on battery-powered phones for contact with the outside world.