Fighting continues in Eastern DRC after the hour of the truce.

Fighting continues in Eastern DRC after the hour of the truce.

According to the terms of the ceasefire agreement reached this week in Luanda, the M23 rebels were supposed to put an end to the fighting on Friday evening. However, according to local sources, the rebels were still making progress at the end of the day on one of the fronts of the theater of their offensive in the eastern DRC.

Residents contacted by phone after 6:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. GMT), the truce’s scheduled time, reported ongoing fighting near Bwiza, which is located about 40 km north of the major city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu. In the 2000s, Laurent Nkunda, the former leader of the Congolese Tutsi rebels, had his base of operations in this area of Bwiza.

Even so, it was challenging to get a clear picture of the situation because it was getting late.

An administrative source claimed that the M23 was in Bwiza and that the rebels had taken control of other nearby villages.

The M23 and Hutu militias engaged in significant firearm exchanges earlier in the day, around 70 km north of Goma, in the neighboring groupement (administrative entity) of Bambo, according to other sources.

A security source verified that the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), Rwandan Hutu rebels founded in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the massacre of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, had engaged in these fights in opposition to the M23.

In this region, the fighting appeared to have ceased in the early evening.

Additionally, the situation has remained frozen 20 kilometers north of Goma, where a front line has been set up on National Road 2’s Kibumba for approximately two weeks.

The M23 rebels would withdraw “from the occupied territories” and “retreat to their starting positions” two days after the “cessation of hostilities” on Friday, according to a mini-summit that was held in Luanda on Wednesday as part of diplomatic efforts to restore peace to the DRC’s war-torn east.

The regional army for East Africa stationed in Goma “would use force to convince them to submit” if the rebels refuse, the accepted text further stated.

Mountain strongholds – A spokesman for M23 stated on Thursday that the movement was “not really concerned” by the Luanda agreement because it was not present at the discussions in which Félix Tshisekedi, the president of the Congo, and Vincent Biruta, the minister of foreign affairs of Rwanda, among others, participated.

He said, urging a “direct communication” with the administration, “Normally, when there is a ceasefire, it is between the two fighting groups.” The latter declines, refraining from talking because it is now dealing with a “terrorist” movement backed by Rwanda.

M23 President Bertrand Bisimwa stated in a statement issued on Friday that the rebel movement “accepts the ceasefire as advised” by the Luanda summit “once again.” He does, however, request that Kinshasa “respect him in turn, failing which the M23 fully reserves.”

More than a hundred armed groups are active in the eastern DRC, including the M23 (“March 23 Movement”), a former Tutsi uprising that was put down in 2013 but reemerged at the end of the previous year. The M23 accuses Kinshasa of breaking its promises regarding the demobilization and reintegration of its combatants.

Starting from its mountainous strongholds in the territory of Rutshuru, on the borders of the Congolese, Rwandan, and Ugandan borders, the movement has been making progress towards the west, towards Goma, as well as the territory of Masisi, which is fertile land and farmland that has been populated since the Belgian colonization by many Tutsi from Rwanda.