Goma, Congo (AP)-The Government of Congo described on Tuesday that the unilateral cease-fire-fired rebels in the east of Congo was declared ‘false communication’, while the United Nations noticed reports of heavy fighting with Congolese troops In the region.
The M23 rebels announced on Monday -furen on humanitarian grounds after supplications for the safe passage of help and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons.
But “the only thing we are waiting for is the withdrawal of the M23,” the spokesperson for Congo’s government Patrick Muyaya told journalists.
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Last week, the M23 grabbed control of Goma, a city of 2 million people in the heart of a regional house to trillion dollars in mineral wealth. It remains under rebel control.
The M23 was reported that he gained ground in other areas of East Congo and to merge with another provincial capital Bukavu, in South Kivu.
On Tuesday, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric Journalists told that they had reports of heavy fighting in South Kivu, although “we have no reports about the M23 that comes closer to Bukavu.”
The M23 rebels are supported by around 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to the UN experts. That is much more than in 2012, when they briefly conquered Goma and then withdrew after international pressure. The M23 are the most powerful of the more than 100 armed groups that are active in eastern Congo, which has huge deposits of crucial importance for a large part of the technology of the world.
The Congo government has said that it is open to conversations to resolve the conflict, but that dialogue must take place in the context of earlier peace agreements. Rwanda and the rebels have accused Congo of lack of previous similarities.
Regional leaders meet on Friday and Saturday in Tanzania to discuss the conflict.
Also Tuesday Congo’s Interior Minister, Jacquemain Shabani, that the death toll had reached 2,000 in last week’s fighting, and claimed that bodies had been placed in one or more mass graves. Shabani called them “victims of slaughteres committed by the Rwandan occupiering army.”
There was no immediate Rwanda remark.
On Monday, the UN Health Agency said that at least 900 people were killed in the fighting in Goma between the rebels and Congolese troops.
Residents continued to be buried bodies.
“I just saw the circumstances in which our Congolese brothers were buried, our children who were shot during the events in Goma,” Elisa Dunia, the father of a victim, told the Associated Press at a cemetery in the city. “We are a deeply saddened, and we ask for peace to return to our country.”
Debors Zuzu, also at the cemetery, said he lost three family members, two in a bomb explosion while another was shot. He said he was devastated.
“Our biggest plea is that the leaders ensure that the war ends because war has no value. We want peace in Goma,” said Zuzu. “If everyone dies, I don’t know who the leaders will rule.”
The UN -Humanitarian coordinator for Congo, Bruno Lemarquis, called for the urgent reopening of the airport in Goma and called it “a lifeline” for the evacuation of wounded people and the delivery of help.
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Kamale reported from Kinshasa, Congo. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer has contributed to the United Nations.