PRETORIA, February 16. /TASS/. The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has accused neighboring Rwanda of seizing part of its territory.
"Rwanda is pursing plans of occupying and plundering our land, committing crimes and gross human rights violations there," the Actualite news portal quoted the DRC government as saying in a statement following the seizure of the city of Bukavu, the capital of the South Kivu province, by Rwanda-backed rebels. "We will stay firm, vigilant and united in the face of this trial. We will support our armed forces, the president and commander-in-chief."
The government acknowledged the deterioration of the security situation in Bukavu and called on the city residents not to leave their houses.
Rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23) entered Bukavu late on February 14. According to the Okapi radio stations, after government forces and militia units left the city, it was taken by the rebels without any resistance.
Bukavu's population exceeds one million. About a million more people live in camps for displaced persons and refugees in its suburbs. At the end of January, M23 rebels captured the city of Goma, the administrative center of the neighboring province of North Kivu.
The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been smoldering for decades. After the Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, and the defeat in the civil war in 1993, part of the Rwandan government army, mostly the Hutu, retreated to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they came into conflict with the local Tutsi, the Banyamulenge. After the Tutsi came to power in Rwanda, it came in support for the Banyamulenge. Eventually, the Banyamulenge were joined by Congolese separatists and deserters from the Congolese army to form the M23 group in 2012. Rebel groups, composed primarily of the Tutsi, plunged into hostilities in the east of the DRC in January 2021 and by now they have seized several cities and more than 100 villages in the North Kivu province.