At least three people died yesterday and a dozen were wounded when a bomb hit a camp for the displaced amidst heavy fighting in eastern DR Congo, local sources said.
Government forces and M23 rebels had been fighting during the day in the Sake region, 20 kilometres west of the provincial capital Goma, the sources said.
A civil society source accused the M23 group of hitting the Zaina camp. “There were five killed and 15 hurt,” the source said.
A medical source reported that three of 18 casualties had died in the attack. “The fighting has continued this evening. The situation could lead to a new wave of displacement among the population,” noted an administrative source.
Communications Minister and government spokesman Patrick Muyaya took to X, formerly Twitter to accuse the Rwandan army of “firing the bomb in the early evening” and listed eight people seriously injured.
Clashes have intensified between the M23 — among the strongest of dozens of armed groups roaming the troubled east — and the Congolese army.
The flare-up has pushed thousands of civilians to flee the town of Sake, a strategic location on the route towards Goma, capital of North Kivu. The M23 has seized vast swathes of the province since emerging from dormancy in late 2021, in an area wracked by decades of unrest and regional wars.
A man argues with a police officer during a protest against Western partners near the United Nations’ Monusco mission headquarters in downtown Kinshasa, DR Congo, yesterday.
