Goma — Heavy fighting broke out on 15 November in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo between M23 rebels and government forces (FARDC), breaking a virtual truce that had lasted on the frontlines between these forces for nearly three months.
M23 (The Mouvement Du 23 Mars) began in April 2012 as an army mutiny by several hundred soldiers who accused the government of breaching the terms of a March 2009 peace deal under which the rebel group they then belonged to, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) morphed into a political party while CNDP fighters joined the army.
A spokesman for the FARDC in North Kivu, Col Olivier Hamuli, said the M23 attacked FARDC positions east of Kibumba, about 30km north of Goma, from 8am on 15 November, but were repulsed and fighting had ceased by the evening. Local media and UN observers who visited Kibumba after the fighting were shown the dead bodies of a dozen combatants identified by FARDC as M23 members, some of whom the army said had Rwandan identity documents.
Rwanda has persistently denied accusations, repeated in two UN panel of experts’ reports on DRC, that it has been supporting the M23 rebels (whose armed elements in October adopted the name Congolese Revolutionary Army).
M23 accused the government of breaking the ceasefire. M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama told IRIN that its forces had been attacked at 5am on 15 November near the Ugandan border north of Jomba, and subsequently on three other fronts.
The FARDC says at least 44 M23 fighters died in the fighting.
Is this the end of the truce?
Further hostilities seem likely in the near future. About a week before the latest clashes a military source told IRIN an offensive involving some 3,000 FARDC troops was expected in mid-November, and the governor of North Kivu Province, Julien Paluku, on 16 November gave members of M23 an ultimatum to surrender or be crushed.
A ceasefire had held along the main front line to the north of Goma since August, but there had been reports of M23 fighting alongside other armed groups in attacks on army bases in Masisi Territory, west of Rutshuru, every few days since 12 October.