21 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
At least seven civilians died on Thursday in an attack carried out by alleged members of the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group in the town of Kasali, located in the province of North Kivu (east), as denounced by the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Sources cited by the Congolese radio station Radio Okapi have indicated that short arms and explosives have been used during the attack, while the authorities of the Bambo group, in Rutshuru territory, have stressed that the death toll is still provisional.
The incident, on which the M23 has not ruled, takes place days after the regional force of the East African Community (EAC, according to its acronym in English) deployed in the east of the DRC reported that the ceasefire declared ago a month has “significantly increased” the withdrawal of the rebel group. The M23 has stated on several occasions that it will only agree to disarm after a dialogue process with the Congolese authorities, although the president of the DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, has ruled out this possibility.
The M23 is made up mainly of Congolese Tutsi and operates mainly in North Kivu. Following a conflict between 2012 and 2013, the RDC and the group signed a peace agreement in December. In these combats, the DRC Army had the support of United Nations troops.
The group launched a new offensive in October 2022, intensified as of November, which has caused a diplomatic crisis between the DRC and Rwanda over their role in the conflict. Kigali accuses Kinshasa of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel armed group founded and made up mainly of Hutus responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and has denounced discrimination and acts of hate against the Tutsi minority in the neighboring country.
