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M23 rebels in a pick-up truck/AFP

World

DR Congo rebels seize new town despite UN deployment

The clashes are the most serious in the rebellion since July, when UN attack helicopters were last put into action against the M23.

UN experts have said Rwanda and Uganda back the rebels, a charge fiercely denied by both countries.

As the fighting flared, the DR Congo government and army levelled fresh accusations Saturday that the M23 were getting help from Rwanda.

DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said the latest fighting erupted when 4,000 men in columns had descended on DR Congo territory from Rwanda.

Olivier Hamuli, a DR Congo army spokesman in North Kivu province, said the M23 was clearly receiving support from Rwanda.

“I was at the front line myself, and the shots came from Rwanda,” he told AFP.

“When our combat tanks come to shell M23 positions, they are coming under fire… from Rwanda.”

Hamuli said the army would launch a new offensive Sunday morning “to retake Kibumba and advance on the M23’s positions wherever they are.”

As the battle raged Saturday, some 50 soldiers’ wives burned tyres on one of Goma’s main streets to protest the killing and wounding of their husbands, witnesses said.

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The M23 rebels are former fighters in the Tutsi rebel group the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

The CNDP was integrated into the DR Congo military under a 2009 peace deal, but the mutineers say they rebelled because the terms of the deal were were never fully implemented.

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