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The provincial authorities do not hide their concerns, especially since the coalition in action includes the main armed groups in the area. Coordinated attacks on several places in the territory. FARDC managed to take back some of them and prepared a big offensive.
With our special correspondent in Kinshasa, Sonia Rolley
If you ask the question, it is incomprehensible all these coordinated attacks with these well-armed men, explains an authority from North Kivu. The coalition facing the Congolese military consists of several former rival groups: members of APCLS, Nyatura and especially the new CMC platform, very close to each other. Rwandan Hutu rebels, FDLR, to which would be added today, according to his information, fighters from the warlord Guidon NDC-Renové, who has long been considered an ally of the Congolese army and an enemy of the Nyatura-APCLS coalition.
Since last year, two factions in this group have been colliding, one of them loyal to the warlord Guidon. “These groups come together when their survival is at stake and Guidon has lost the support of FARDC officials,” said a local researcher, who said he had observed a steady deterioration in the situation for several months. This researcher also explains that one of the groups in the rival faction in Guidon participated in the operations against APCLS. Then the old enemies would have become allies again.
Another factor that may explain this mobilization: the announcement of discussions with the Rwandan army on future operations while the local populations are hostile to them. For civil society, these attacks are still made possible by the small number of Congolese army personnel on the ground. “We can not either place soldiers in every place, the problem is that they attack on several fronts,” replies one of the province’s governors.
MSF received at least 17 wounded in the health structures supported by NGOs. MSF also says they have at least 6,000 displaced people in the area.
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