DR Congo government forces launched an attack on the M23 armed group in the country's east, using drones to strike a strategic mining site occupied by the Rwanda-backed rebels, security sources told AFP Wednesday.
The fighting on Wednesday was concentrated in particular in areas near the mining town of Rubaya, where M23 soldiers were hit by a drone strike the previous day, local and security sources told AFP.
The Rubaya mine produces 15 to 30 percent of the world's supply of coltan, key to making electronics such as laptops and mobile phones.
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Since its resurgence in 2021, the M23 has taken vast tracts of the DRC's resource-rich east, capturing the Rubaya mine in North Kivu province in April 2024 with Rwanda's help.
Its advance intensified the more than three-decades-long conflict which has ravaged the eastern DRC, where dozens of rival armed groups and foreign powers have long vied for control of the region's rich veins of valuable minerals.
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The M23 in December launched an offensive on the strategic city of Uvira, a strategic town in South Kivu province near the border with Burundi.
The assault drew condemnation from the United States, which has mediated a fragile peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda.
Angola, another mediator, had proposed a ceasefire to take effect on February 18, though it has done little to halt hostilities.
'People are terrified'
On Wednesday, local militias backed by Congolese soldiers carried out attacks across several points of the front line in North Kivu, particularly in Masisi – where Rubaya is located – according to local and security sources.
These militias captured the village of Kazinga on Wednesday, some 20 kilometres northwest of Rubaya, the same sources said.
According to UN experts, the M23 has set up an administration parallel to the Congolese state to regulate the operation of the Rubaya mine since its capture.
"In central Rubaya, people are terrified. I went to see the place where the drone struck, but access was denied," a resident told AFP Tuesday, requesting anonymity.
AFP was unable to confirm the death toll from the strike as phone networks in the area have been down since Tuesday and Congolese authorities and civil society groups fled when the M23 arrived.
Clashes were also reported Wednesday in the South Kivu highlands, where the Congolese army is battling a coalition of militias allied with the M23.
Outmatched on the ground by the better-equipped M23 and Rwandan troops, Kinshasa's forces have relied in part on US pressure on Kigali to stabilise the front line, regional specialists and security sources told AFP.
They also said Kinshasa has secured relative control of its skies thanks to long-range Chinese and Turkish drones, and the help of foreign paramilitaries.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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