Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel group, M23, have reportedly captured a key border town in the renewed fighting in the country, with the Central African nation blaming its neighbours, Rwanda, for allegedly supporting the militia.
The DRC’s military on Tuesday, accused Rwanda of encouraging an invasion on its territory after the M23 rebels captured Bunagana, a key border town, marking a dramatic escalation in tensions between the two neighbours.
“The Rwandan defence forces have this time decided to violate our territorial integrity by occupying the border town of Bunagana.
“This is no less than invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the military governor of North Kivu province, said in a statement late on Monday night.
Bunagana, a city of about two million people, is located 60km northeast of Goma, and serves as a hub for international aid organisations and the United Nations peacekeeping mission, which is known by its French acronym MONUSCO, fell into the hands of the M23 on Monday.
Relations between the two countries have been frosty at best in the past two decades since the rise of the M23 fighters who are mostly of Congolese ethnic Tutsis, with the DRC accusing Rwanda of backing the rebels, often citing Rwandan Tutsi descent as the basis for the support.
But in its defence, Kigali has strongly denied accusations over the years that it supports the M23 rebels fighting in DRC.
Rwanda has also allege that the DRC gave refuge to the ethnic Hutus who carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
This is the second time the M23 will capture a key DRC city after it rose to prominence more than a decade ago when its fighters seized Goma, the largest city in DRC’s east, which sits along the border with Rwanda, before they were pushed out of the country by government forces.
They were said to have fled to neighbouring Rwanda with some of them integrated into the Congolese national military after a peace deal.
But earlier this year the group appeared to make a comeback, launching an offensive against the DRC military after saying Kinshasa had failed to live up to its decade-long promises.