Fighters from the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group have withdrawn from several areas of the violence-plagued eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the group, locals and the military told AFP on Monday.<\/p>\n
The United States is attempting to enforce an unsuccessful peace deal between the anti-government M23 and the Congolese government in return for privileged access to the eastern DRC’s vast mineral riches.<\/p>\n
The M23 launched an offensive in December on the city of Uvira, in the eastern province of South Kivu, at a time when the DRC and Rwanda were in the process of ratifying a peace deal under US mediation.<\/p>\n
The group withdrew in January under pressure from Washington, which on Friday again said the belligerents should respect the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Early on Monday, M23 fighters left several areas north of Uvira near the border with Burundi, Rwanda’s southern neighbour, the armed group, local officials and the military said.<\/p>\n
The most important of these is the town of Sange, a major crossroads lying 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Uvira.<\/p>\n
Locals said pro-government militia fighters known as “wazalendo” had moved into Sange to take their place.<\/p>\n
“M23 has withdrawn from Sange,”<\/em>\u00a0senior local official Paul Fikiri Mudeda told AFP.<\/p>\n The army’s spokesperson in the region, lieutenant Reagan Mbuyi, said the M23 had retreated from Sange and the nearby areas of\u00a0“Kabunambo… Mutarule and Bwegera.”<\/em><\/p>\n A security source within the M23 confirmed the fighters had withdrawn from Sange and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n But it continued to control Kamanyola, a town 70 kilometres north of Uvira, where the borders of the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi converge.<\/p>\n “We are returning to the positions we held before taking Uvira,”<\/em>\u00a0the M23 source told AFP on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n They said Kamanyola was\u00a0“not included in the withdrawal.”<\/em><\/p>\n Locals said pro-government militia fighters\u00a0“entered Sange on Monday”<\/em>\u00a0after the M23 left.<\/p>\n “There’s a real sense of jubilation,”<\/em>\u00a0one inhabitant told AFP.<\/p>\n “Young people, women, children \u2014 even school kids \u2014 are all celebrating right now.”<\/em><\/p>\n For more than 30 years the mineral-rich eastern DRC has been a battleground between various armed groups, vying for control of its many mines.<\/p>\n Since 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of territory in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, bordering South Kivu.<\/p>\n The seizure of Uvira marked a major expansion southwards into South Kivu of its sphere of influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fighters from the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group have withdrawn from several areas of the violence-plagued eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the group, locals and the military told AFP on Monday. The United States is attempting to enforce an unsuccessful peace deal between the anti-government M23 and the Congolese government in return for privileged access to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AFP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,1129],"tags":[1621,140,3804],"class_list":["post-20853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-m23-rebels","tag-rwanda","tag-uvira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20854,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20853\/revisions\/20854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}