Congo says it’s fighting troops from Rwanda

KANYABAYONGA, Congo – The Congolese government said Tuesday its troops were battling soldiers from Rwanda, pointing to the capture of two forces from its longtime foe as proof that the neighboring country’s army had re-entered Congo’s east.

Rwanda denied the accusation. On the ground in Congo’s far-flung east, troops fighting since Sunday said the battle remains between rival factions of Congo’s army – made up of troops that fought for the government in the war and former rebels, including those once backed by Rwanda.

Capt. Kabakuri Kennedy said his dissident ex-rebel forces had taken control of the town of Kanyabayonga in gunbattles after army loyalists had attacked Sunday “to chase us out.”

Fighters, and the few remaining residents in the town that once had a population of 15,000, said the fighting that left restaurants, pharmacies, grocery stores and mud huts bullet-pocked and two fighters dead continued Tuesday five miles away.

About 200 dissident ex-rebel Congolese soldiers patrolled Kanyabayonga, about 100 miles north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. Another 100 soldiers were deployed on the town’s outskirts, surveying the countryside for the enemy.

Boniface Karibush, 40, said he fled into the forest when fighting broke out, but he returned briefly Tuesday to survey the damage.

“This troubles us very much, very much,” he said of the latest round of fighting.

Congo’s government said earlier that rival factions from Congo’s 1998-2002 war, including one ex-rebel group backed by Rwanda, had taken up arms against each other.

But on Tuesday, Kinshasa said regular troops from tiny Rwanda – which has twice before invaded Congo – had entered the fray.

“The forces that are fighting against our army at Kanyabayonga are Rwandan troops,” Congo’s Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi told reporters in Kinshasa.