DR Congo’s military used newly deployed jets to bombard M23 positions in the east of the country on Tuesday, officials said, with some residents of rebel-held territory fleeing across the border.<\/p>\n
A mostly Congolese Tutsi group, the M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012, briefly capturing the main city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), before being driven out.<\/p>\n
After lying dormant for years, the group took up arms again in late 2021, claiming the DRC had failed to honour a pledge to integrate them into the army, among other grievances.<\/p>\n
M23 rebels have won a string of victories against the Congolese army in North Kivu province in recent weeks, dramatically increasing the territory under their control.<\/p>\n
Their resurgence has cratered relations between the DRC and its smaller neighbour Rwanda, which Kinshasa accuses of backing the M23.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, a Congolese security official who asked for anonymity said war planes were bombarding the rebel-held Tchanzu area of North Kivu and would continue “all day”.<\/p>\n
A resident of the strategic town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border -\u2014 which the M23 captured in June \u2014 confirmed to\u00a0AFP<\/em>\u00a0that the aircraft were striking the area.<\/p>\n “It’s every man for himself,” he said, describing how town residents were fleeing across the border into Uganda.<\/p>\n Residents flee<\/p>\n Damien Sebuzanane, a local civil society representative, also said that Bunagana residents had fled.<\/p>\n The DRC deployed two Sukhoi-25 jets to the troubled east over the weekend, after the M23 captured a series of settlements along an important highway leading to Goma.<\/p>\n One on the planes violated Rwandan airspace on Monday \u2014 although Kinshasa said the incident was a mistake and not intentional.<\/p>\n Despite official denials from Kigali, an unpublished report for the United Nations seen by\u00a0AFP<\/em>\u00a0in August pointed to Rwandan involvement with the M23.<\/p>\n The report also said the M23 plans to capture Goma in order to extract political concessions from the government in Kinshasa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DR Congo’s military used newly deployed jets to bombard M23 positions in the east of the country on Tuesday, officials said, with some residents of rebel-held territory fleeing across the border. A mostly Congolese Tutsi group, the M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012, briefly capturing the main city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":17070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","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_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"0","type":"percentage","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[{"good_text":""}],"bad":[{"bad_text":""}],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[{"rating_text":"","rating_number":"10"}],"price":[{"shop":"","price":"","link":"","icon":""}],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"enable_post_split":"0","post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17071,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17069\/revisions\/17071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}