Day: December 31, 2022

The European Union on Saturday urged Rwanda to stop supporting the M23 rebel group, which has captured swaths of territory in the North Kivu province of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The DRC, along with the United States and several European countries, has repeatedly accused its smaller central African neighbor of backing the M23, although Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, denies the charge.

The Tutsi rebel group has in recent months advanced to within a few dozen kilometers of provincial capital Goma.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday that the European bloc had urged Rwanda to “stop supporting the M23 and use all means to press the M23 to comply with the decisions taken by the EAC (East African Community)” and at a November summit in Angola.

“It also firmly urges all states of the region to prevent the provision of any support to armed groups active in the DRC,” Borrell said.

He called on Kinshasa to “take all measures necessary to protect the civilian population in its territory.”

Under heavy international pressure to disarm, M23 joined a ceremony last week to deliver the strategic town of Kibumba to an East African military force as a “goodwill gesture” for peace.

The EAC also said the group had to withdraw to the border between the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda.

However, the Congolese army promptly dubbed the Kibumba handover a “sham.”

Borrell’s comments came after a U.N. experts’ report on DR Congo indicated it had collected proof of “direct intervention” by Rwandan defense forces inside DRC territory between at least November 2021 and last October.

The experts’ report says Rwandan troops launched operations to reinforce the M23 against the mainly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), notably by supplying weapons, ammunition and uniforms.

Kigali sees the FDLR as a threat that justifies interventions inside the DRC.

Rwanda has also accused the DRC, where presidential elections are scheduled for next December, of using the conflict for political purposes as well as fabricating a November massacre of at least 131 civilians.

A U.N. probe blamed those deaths on M23 rebels.

In a statement Saturday, Kinshasa welcomed the findings of the U.N. experts, which it said “put an end to the lies and manipulations” of Rwanda.

Given the gravity of the allegations, it called for the U.N. Security Council to examine the experts’ report with a view to possible sanctions against Rwanda.

Meanwhile, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame blamed Kinshasa for the chaos in its war-torn eastern regions in his New Year’s address.

“After spending tens of billions of dollars on peacekeeping over the past two decades, the security situation in Eastern Congo is worse than ever,” Kagame said in a statement Saturday.

“To explain this failure, some in the international community blame Rwanda, even though they know very well that the true responsibility lies primarily with the government of the DRC. It is high time that the unwarranted vilification of Rwanda stopped.”

Source: Voice of America

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Saturday for an attack Friday on a police checkpoint in Egypt’s Suez Canal city of Ismailia. At least four people, including three police officers, were killed, officials and state-run media said.

The attack also wounded 12 others, mostly conscripts who were taken to a hospital, according to a casualty tally document at the hospital.

The dead included three police officers and a still unidentified person, the hospital document obtained by The Associated Press showed.

“A cell of soldiers of the caliphate managed to attack an Egyptian police roadblock … with a machine gun,” the militant group’s Amaq news agency said Saturday.

The attack took place late in the afternoon in Ismailia city, on the western side of the Suez Canal, according to security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The media office of Ismailia province described the attack as a terrorist strike.

State-run al-Qahera New television reported that security forces killed one of the attackers. It broadcast graphic footage purportedly showing a body, saying it was the dead militant.

Egypt has been battling the Islamic State extremist group in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula for years. The militants have carried out numerous attacks in Sinai and elsewhere in the country, mainly targeting security forces, minority Christians, and those who they accuse of collaborating with the military and police.

In May, at least 11 Egyptian soldiers, including an officer, were killed in a militant attack on a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal.

The pace of IS attacks in Sinai’s main theater and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched a big operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.

Source: Voice of America