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DR Congo soldiers in Minova, south of Goma, on Sunday/AFP-File

Africa

DR Congo rebels start pullout of frontline positions

— ‘We will start leaving Goma tomorrow’ —
Decades of civil war between multiple militia forces – as well as meddling by regional armies – have ravaged the region, which holds vast mineral wealth, including copper, diamonds, gold and the key mobile phone component coltan.

UN experts have previously fingered both Rwanda and Uganda – who played active roles in back-to-back conflicts in DR Congo from 1996 to 2003 – of supporting the M23, a charge both countries deny.

A French-drafted resolution at the UN Security Council on Wednesday said it would consider sanctions against more M23 rebel leaders and those “providing external support,” though it did not name any specific country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also made tough comments on the crisis, calling on the region’s leaders to withdraw backing for the rebels.

Civilians, many of whom have had to flee repeated rounds of fighting over several years, are suffering as aid agencies struggle to cope with newly displaced, with some 285,000 people abandoning their homes since the rebels began their uprising in April.

Many are in “critical need,” Clinton said, as she called “on leaders and governments from throughout the region to halt and prevent any support to the M23 from their territory.”

Last week’s advance by the M23 raised fears of a wider conflict and a new humanitarian crisis erupting in the unstable region.

“The humanitarian impact of this conflict in the eastern part of the country is devastating,” Clinton said, after talks with African Union chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Rights groups and UN officials have accused the rebels of killing, raping and abducting civilians, with the Red Cross collecting 62 bodies of civilians killed in Goma in the days after its capture.

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The organisation reported civilians and combatants were criss-crossing the region in search of shelter, food and medicine.

DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende charged that the rebels had plundered buildings in Goma “from top to bottom”, and the government has ruled out any peace talks until the M23 quit Goma.

The M23 was founded by former fighters in an ethnic-Tutsi rebel group whose members were integrated into the regular army under a 2009 peace deal which they claim was never fully implemented.

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