Sawt Falasteen - Intense combat edges toward key DRC city as UN plans urgent meeting

The resource-rich eastern provinces of North and South Kivu have been plagued by conflicts for three decades, with the M23 emerging as one of the most powerful armed groups in recent years.

M23 has seized vast swathes of the east of the DRC since 2021, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis.

After peace talks between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and DRC's Felix Tshisekedi were cancelled in mid-December, M23 fighters backed by several thousand Rwandan troops quickly advanced towards Goma, the capital of North Kivu and a key city that is home to more than a million people.

In the city center, heavy detonations have been echoing since dawn on Sunday, according to AFP correspondents in Goma.

Combat helicopters of the Congolese army circled in the sky. Cars and motorbikes were still circulating, but most businesses were closed. As the fighting draws closer, new columns of displaced people have arrived in the city.

On Saturday, three countries -- South Africa, Malawi and Uruguay -- announced the deaths of a total of 13 soldiers serving as peacekeepers in the conflict zone, where the UN forces, known as MONUSCO, and a southern regional peacekeeping force called SAMIDRC, have been supporting DRC's military.

The escalation in fighting prompted an emergency UN Security Council meeting, originally set for Monday, to be moved forwards to Sunday.

Congolese army spokesman General Sylvain Ekenge told journalists that his country's armed forces were working to "push back the enemy".

"Rwanda is determined to seize the city of Goma," he said.

The DRC announced it was pulling its diplomats from Kigali in a letter to Rwanda's embassy in Kinshasa.

Urging the fighters to halt their advance, the European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said "Rwanda must cease its support for the M23 and withdraw".

"The EU strongly condemns Rwanda's military presence in the DRC as a clear violation of international law, the UN charter and the territorial integrity of the DRC," she said.

The African Union and French President Emmanuel Macron -- who spoke in separate telephone calls with both Kagame and Tshisekedi -- also added their voices to demands for an immediate halt to the fighting.

The city was briefly occupied at the end of 2012 by the M23 ("March 23 Movement"), but the group withdrew after a deal. It was militarily defeated by DRC forces and the UN in 2013 but regrouped several years later.

Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have already been declared and broken in the region. The last ceasefire was signed at the end of July.

- 'Active combat' -

An AFP reporter on Saturday saw a burned-out, smoking armoured vehicle of the UN peacekeeping force MONUSCO on the road between Goma and Sake, scene of intense fighting in recent days.

South Africa's defence ministry on Saturday said that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) had "lost nine members by Friday".

Seven of the dead were serving in the SAMIDRC regional force sent by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and two were UN peacekeepers, it said.

A Malawian army spokesman said three of its soldiers with the SADC force also died during clashes, while Uruguay's military announced that one of its members serving with the UN peacekeepers had been killed and four others wounded.

Some 15,000 peacekeepers are in the DRC.

MONUSCO or the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said its Quick Reaction Forces had "been actively engaged in intense combat" with its heavy artillery firing against M23 positions.

- 'Harmful consequences' -

Since the beginning of January, about 400,000 people have been forced to flee the fighting, according to the UN.

The UN has begun evacuating "non-essential" staff from Goma to neighbouring Uganda and to the Congolese capital Kinshasa.

Britain, the United States Germany and France also have already asked their citizens to leave.

Angolan President Joao Lourenco, the African Union's mediator between Rwanda and the DRC, denounced "irresponsible actions by the M23 and its supporters".

In December, a planned meeting between Tshisekedi and Kagame as part of an Angola-led peace process was cancelled due to a lack of agreement.

On Saturday, Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said on social media platform X that "dialogue between the DRC government and the rebels from an aggrieved Congolese community that has been victim of systematic persecution is the only way to resolve this conflict".

R.AbuNasser--SF-PST