Sawt Falasteen - UN chief calls for Rwanda to stop advance on key DR Congo city

As clashes escalated with the deaths of around a dozen foreign peacekeepers, the UN Security Council prepared an emergency meeting on the crisis while both the DRC and Rwanda withdrew their diplomats from each other's capitals.

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

The 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 home to more than a million people.

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

Later in the day a Rwandan drone struck a Congolese army position around six kilometres (four miles) north of the city, which UN peacekeeping sources said injured at least two people.

Above Goma itself, Congolese combat helicopters 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.

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

Ahead of the meeting, the world body's Secretary-General Guterres denounced "the M23 armed group's ongoing offensive and advances towards Goma in North Kivu with the support of the Rwanda Defence Forces", according to a statement by his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

"He calls on the M23 to immediately cease all hostile actions and withdraw from occupied areas. He further calls on the Rwanda Defence Forces to cease support to the M23 and withdraw from DRC territory," Dujarric added.

- 'Push back the enemy' -

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

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

Rwanda promptly responded, Foreign Affairs Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe telling AFP on Sunday that Kigali had "evacuated" its final diplomat from the DRC.

"We evacuated our remaining diplomat on Friday... as he was under regular threats by Congolese officials," said Nduhungirehe.

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

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was "deeply concerned" by the fighting and urged "de-escalation" in a call with Kagame, calling on the Rwandan leader to return to the negotiating table.

Goma was briefly occupied at the end of 2012 by the M23, or 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' -

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 for both the UN forces, known as MONUSCO, and a southern regional peacekeeping force.

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.

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or MONUSCO, said its 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 have likewise already asked their citizens to leave.

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.

G.AbuHamad--SF-PST