Congo Military Kill Rebels, Gains Ground In Drive To Crush Insurgency

Congolese soldiers from FARDC take a break during their offence against the rebels from the FDLR in Kirumba village of Rutshuru territory in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The Congolese army has killed not less than 10 rebel fighters and also captured territory, weapons as well as men during its latest campaign to stamp out an insurgency in the east of the country, the government spokesman said on Sunday. Reuters report:

Seven rebel fighters have been killed in fighting near the town of Tongo in North Kivu province since Saturday and a government soldier was also killed there, spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters.

Three rebels were killed earlier in South Kivu. The push began last week in North and South Kivu against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda — a force at the heart of two decades of conflict in the region that borders Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, he said.

“They (the rebels) are being chased. They are abandoning the majority of their arms,” spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters. The rebel force of an estimated 1,400 fighters includes some former soldiers and militiamen responsible for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. They have exploited the region’s gold, diamond and tin deposits and waged periodic war with the Kinshasa government and other armed groups since fleeing to Congo at the end of the genocide.

Millions died of conflict, hunger and disease during a war in Congo’s east between 1998 and 2003 and the region remains plagued by armed factions.