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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Fierce Fighting Resumes in Eastern DR Congo |
| 2013-08-30 |
| [An Nahar] Fresh fighting flared in the resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... Thursday, with government forces backed by U.N. troops shelling rebels near Goma and tensions spilling over into neighboring Rwanda. Artillery fire could be heard around Kibati north of Goma, the capital of the turbulent North Kivu province, where the DR Congo army and a newly-formed U.N. intervention brigade have been battling M23 rebels for a week. A Rwandan woman was also killed and her baby injured in what an official alleged was "deliberate" cross-border shelling. The United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... and Kinshasa accuse Rwanda of supporting the M23, a charge that Kigali denies. Western military sources who asked not to be named said that the clash could be a prelude to a full-on assault by the army and U.N. troops, who have an unprecedented mandate to take the offensive against the armed movements long active in the mineral-rich but impoverished Kivu region. The two eastern Kivu provinces, North and South, have been chronically unstable since two wars wracked the vast country between 1996 and 2003, drawing in armies from neighboring and southern African countries, who fought in part over access to vast mineral wealth. All flights to Goma, a city of a million people that was occupied by M23 for 10 days last November, have been suspended since the outlying airport is vulnerable, said a source in MONUSCO, the U.N. mission in the country. On Wednesday a U.N. soldier from Tanzania was killed and three others maimed in the fighting, U.N. and military sources said. The U.N. intervention force is using attack helicopters and mortars in the Kibati hills, while firing on other rebel positions with heavy artillery, according to MONUSCO front man Madnodje Mounoubai. |
| Posted by:Fred |