SAKE/GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, (Reuters) – R ebels advanced in eastern Congo on Friday, seeking to strengthen their grip before a regional summit intended to damp down the insurgency in an area long plagued by ethnic and political conflict.
Fighters from the M23 group, who are widely thought to be backed by neighbouring Rwanda, pushed south along Lake Kivu near the new rebel stronghold of Goma on the Rwandan border.
In the capital Kinshasa, protesters accused the rebels of abuses including the rape of pregnant women while the United Nations reported killings of civilians and kidnappings.
The rebels advanced as their political chief Jean-Marie Runiga was due to meet the president of Uganda on the eve of the Kampala summit of leaders from Africa’s Great Lakes region.
Regional and international leaders are scrambling to halt the latest violence in the Great Lakes area, fuelled by a mix of local and regional politics, ethnic rifts and competition for big reserves of gold, tin and coltan, an ore of rare metals used in electronics and other high-value products.
Another rebel contingent moved north from the road junction at the town of Sake, scene of a failed counter-offensive by government forces.
A Reuters correspondent in Sake said rebels were in control after Thursday’s battle, which had been the first sign of a government fightback since the army abandoned Goma, a frontier city of one million, on Tuesday.
“ There was heavy fighting,” said pastor Jean Kambale. “It’s M23 who control the town. They never lost it.”
Fighters for the group – which said after taking Goma that it would march on Kinshasa 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away to defeat Kabila – met no resistance as they probed south from Sake.
Those rebels who pushed north from Sake moved closer to the home town of Bosco Ntaganda, a Rwandan-born warlord who many say controls the insurgency and is wanted for war crimes by the international court at The Hague.,
Thousands of refugees were fleeing the fighting and heading for Goma, where aid agencies have a significant presence, along with U.N. peacekeepers who stood back when the rebels moved in.
U.N. aid agencies painted a bleak picture of the aftermath of the fighting, which they estimate has displaced 140,000 people in and around the lakeside city of Goma.
