M23 advances in DR Congo despite US deal

Streets were empty, shops shuttered, and soldiers fled a key eastern DR Congo city on Wednesday, a day after the Rwanda-backed M23 militia entered the outskirts, in a move Burundi called a “middle finger” to the United States after the signing of a peace deal in Washington. M23 fighters entered the strategic city of Uvira […]

Streets were empty, shops shuttered, and soldiers fled a key eastern DR Congo city on Wednesday, a day after the Rwanda-backed M23 militia entered the outskirts, in a move Burundi called a “middle finger” to the United States after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.
M23 fighters entered the strategic city of Uvira at the gateway to Burundi late Tuesday, security and military sources said, plunging the city of several hundred thousand residents into uncertainty over who was in charge.
It comes less than a year after the anti-government group seized Goma and Bukavu, two provincial capitals in the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for around three decades.
“The residents are locked inside their homes,” one of them told AFP. “Everyone is staying home,” another added.
“We don’t understand anything, we can only wait for new authorities to take over. We can’t remain without an army or police,” a third resident said. All spoke by telephone and asked to remain anonymous.
The latest offensive – launched on December 1 against the Congolese army backed by Burundian forces and allied armed groups – has further shaken hopes that an agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump will succeed in halting the conflict.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame inked the deal in Washington last Thursday.
“Signing an agreement and not implementing it is a humiliation for everyone, and first and foremost for President Trump,” Burundian Foreign Minister Edouard Bizimana told AFP over the phone.
“It’s truly a slap in the face to the United States, a middle finger,” he said, adding that sanctions against Rwanda were “necessary”.
Rwanda accused the DRC and Burundi of deliberately violating the peace agreement, in a statement on Wednesday. A day earlier, the United States and European powers urged the M23 to “immediately halt” its offensive and for Rwanda to pull its troops out of the eastern DRC.

Border closed
Burundi, which neighbours both the DRC and Rwanda, views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat.
Uvira sits across Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian economic capital Bujumbura, with only around 20 kilometres (12 miles) between the two cities.
Burundi’s main border posts with the DRC were closed on Tuesday afternoon and are now considered “military zones”, military and police sources told AFP.
Several Congolese soldiers and members of pro-Kinshasa militia were still seen in the area of Uvira, military sources and witnesses said.
The city nestled between mountains and Lake Tanganyika had already largely emptied on Tuesday as soldiers, police and administrative personnel fled the M23’s advance.
Residents speaking to AFP by telephone had pointed to a “every man for himself” mentality and growing panic.
More than 30,000 Congolese have fled the fighting and arrived in Burundi in the space of a week, a Burundian local administrative official and a UN source said Tuesday.
According to an initial estimate by the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within South Kivu province since December 2.