Sawt Falasteen - M23 calls public meeting in captured DRC city as fighters advance

After capturing Goma, the main city in North Kivu province, last week, the M23 and Rwandan troops launched a new offensive on Wednesday in a neighbouring province.

Breaking a ceasefire it had declared unilaterally, the fighters seized the South Kivu mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the regional capital Bukavu.

The M23 anti-governmental group had said in declaring the humanitarian ceasefire that it had "no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities".

The battle for Goma killed at least 2,900 people, the United Nations said on Wednesday, in a much higher toll than previously announced.

Humanitarian and local sources said on Thursday that Congolese forces were bracing for an assault in the town of Kavumu, which hosts the province's airport and lies about 30 km from Bukavu.

Equipment and troops are being evacuated to avoid being captured by the advancing M23 and its Rwandan allies, the sources said.

The fall of Kavumu, the last barrier before Bukavu, would be another stinging setback for the army and government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In more than three years of fighting, the M23's lightning offensive against Goma was a major escalation in the mineral-rich region, scarred by relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups over three decades.

Residents of the city of one million people have been told to attend the M23's public meeting in the stadium on Thursday.

Men using loudspeakers went through the streets a day earlier instructing the population that their presence was mandatory, an AFP journalist saw.

Businesses are to remain shuttered on Thursday at M23's request.

- 'Governing differently' -

Several thousand people had already turned up first thing on Thursday morning in front of the stadium and the area's streets were crowded.

M23 members regulated the flow at the stadium gates.

Among the crowd, several people wore T-shirts saying "Governing North Kivu Differently".

Since the M23 resurfaced in late 2021, the DRC army, which has a reputation for being poorly trained and undermined by corruption, has been forced to retreat.

Fears the violence could spark a wider conflict have galvanised the international community and mediators such as Angola and Kenya in diplomatic efforts.

However, the DRC's top diplomat on Wednesday blasted it as all talk and no action.

"We see a lot of declarations but we don't see actions," Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told journalists in Brussels.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said he had discussed the situation in eastern DRC with European Council chief Antonio Costa and they "agreed on the need for effective de-escalation and a resolution to the conflict that... ensures lasting peace".

He and his DRC counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi, are due to attend a summit of the eight-country East African Community and 16-member Southern African Development Community in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday.

At Kinshasa's request, a day earlier, the United Nations Human Rights Council will convene a special session on the crisis.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, which probes allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, said they were "closely following" events in eastern DRC.

A UN expert report said last year that Rwanda had up to 4,000 troops in the DRC, seeking to profit from its vast mineral wealth, and that Kigali had "de facto" control over the M23.

Rwanda has never admitted to military involvement in support of the M23.

It alleges that the DRC supports and shelters the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

C.Hamad--SF-PST