Rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo claim to have taken the key town of Kitshanga after three days of intense clashes with government forces.
The UN-sponsored local radio Okapi was among the first to report the fall of Kitshanga to the rebels.
Images of hundreds of people fleeing the town have also been shared on social media.
“Yes we now have Kitshanga and its neighbourhoods,” Willy Ngoma, a spokesman of the M23 rebels, told the BBC on Friday.
The BBC has approached the military for a response.
Local civil society groups and the UN forces in the country have condemned M23 military offensives which have forced more than 400,000 people to flee their homes.
Congolese Senator Francine Muyumba has called on parliament to hold an extra-ordinary session because “the country is doing very badly”, she said on Twitter.
A summit held in November in neighbouring Angola had asked the M23 rebels to cease hostilities and withdraw from areas it had captured.
But the rebels said they find themselves “obliged to intervene to stop another genocide” against ethnic Tutsis living in DR Congo, according to a statement on Thursday evening.
Kitshanga town lies in a strategic route between the region’s economic hubs of Goma and Butembo.
For some years, the town was the stronghold and the headquarters of the infamous rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and his CNDP rebel group, which later became M23.
UN investigation has revealed that ,at least 131 civilians were killed in a November attack by the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the UN report, the massacre occurred in two villages, Kishishe and Bambo, in the Rutsuhuru district of the eastern North Kivu province.
According to investigators, the attack appeared to be retaliation for the government’s current offensive against the insurgents.
M23 denied the massacre, blaming only eight deaths on “stray bullets.”
But the UN’s Monusco peacekeeping mission in the country said 102 men, 17 women and 12 children were “arbitrarily executed” by the rebel group “as part of reprisals against the civilian population”.
At least 22 women and five girls were also raped, the report said
“This violence was carried out as part of a campaign of murders, rapes, kidnappings and looting against two villages in the Rutshuru territory as reprisals for the clashes between the M23” and other armed groups, including the FDLR, the statement said, adding that the true number of killed could be even higher.
It also said that M23 fighters then buried the bodies of the victims in “what may be an attempt to destroy evidence”.
The government had initially said that over 300 civilians were killed in the attack, which took place between 29-30 November. But its spokesman Patrick Muyaya accepted on Monday that it was difficult to arrive at a firm figure as the region was under M23 occupation.
Congolese authorities have described the killings as war crimes and called for deeper investigation, while protests have been organised in the capital, Kinshasa and Goma, the main city in North Kivu.
Investigators said they couldn’t access the villages where the massacre occurred, but they interviewed 52 victims and direct witnesses who fled the attack in the town of Rwindi about 20km (12 miles) away.
“MONUSCO condemns in the strongest terms the unspeakable violence against civilians and calls for unrestricted access to the scene and the victims for emergency humanitarian assistance,” the investigators said.
An M23 spokesperson rejected the UN’s findings and insisted that it had “asked that there be investigations together with us in Kishishe but the UN never came”.
“The UN is under pressure from the government to come up with a figure, even if it is false,” spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said.
The M23 group was formed a decade ago. It says it is defending the interests of ethnic Tutsis living in DR Congo against Hutu militias and has been involved in a long-running conflict against the central government.
After lying dormant for several years, it took up arms again last year and has been leading an offensive in eastern DRC against the Congolese army.
The massacres in Kishishe and Bambo followed clashes with the FDLR militia, which includes some of the ethnic Hutu leaders of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda who fled across the border into what is now DR Congo.
The M23 has meanwhile accused pro-government forces of “genocide and targeted killings” against the Tutsi community. It said its positions in Bwiza were attacked on Tuesday, despite the current ceasefire agreement.
The M23 has said it is ready to withdraw from the some of the territory it controls. It made the announcement on Tuesday following peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, even though it did not attend the talks.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi has accused neighbouring Rwanda of seeking to destabilase the country by providing weapons to the rebels, an allegation recently endorsed by UN experts. However, this has been denied by the Rwandan government.
More than 100 different armed groups operate in the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, which has been ravaged by conflict for about three decades.
Several countries have sent troops to DR Congo this year as part of an East African Community (EAC) taskforce to try and disarm the groups and bring peace to the area.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebel group has condemned “genocide and targeted killings” against the Tutsi community by government forces and their allies in the east.
It asserted that the government’s coalition forces “attacked our positions in Bwiza and its surroundings on Tuesday, in total violation of the current ceasefire.”
The M23 claimed that government-allied forces had killed innocent civilians, destroyed their homes, looted and slaughtered their cattle, and that the ongoing attacks had displaced and injured many civilians.
“These targeted killings of Tutsi, and those who have rejected the genocide ideology by the said DR Congo government’s coalition, while the international and national community remained tight-lipped, take us back to the time prior to the genocide of 1994 perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda,” it said in a statement.
The group has said that it will not “stand by and watch” as civilian populations get killed, adding that it’s “ready to intervene and stop these horrific massacres”.
The army has not spoken about the allegations but had last week accused the M23 of killing dozens of civilians in the eastern town of Kishishe, which they denied.
The statement by the M23 comes after the group agreed to withdraw from occupied territory following sustained pressure from the government and international community following resolutions agreed on by heads of states during a recent meeting in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
Over 50 Congolese armed groups that attended peace talks which concluded this week in Nairobi also announced that they had agreed to lay down their weapons.
UN hasreported that, thirteen people were killed and 12 others were reported missing after fierce fighting between two rival factions of the rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement-Nur (SLM-Nur) group in Central Darfur state, western Sudan.
The UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) in Sudan said in a statement issued on Thursday that the clashes began on November 19 in the Umu and Arshin areas of the Shamal Jebel Marra locality.
According to the privately owned Al-Intibaha news site, six people were abducted and four others were injured.
The fighting later spread to the nearby villages of Daya, Wara, and Kia, with an estimated 5,600 people fleeing their homes and moving to displaced people’s camps, according to OCHA.
The situation remains tense as there are reports that both parties are mobilising their forces for fresh attacks, according to the UN.
In October, similar clashes between the two groups left at least 13 people killed and 15 others wounded.
SLM-Nur is one of the few rebel groups that did not sign the 2020 Juba peace agreement, which the government signed with former rebel groups in Darfur and southern regions.
There has been division within SLM-Nur in recent months, as some factions have defected.
The M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have said they will not retreat from their positions after regional leaders set a 18:00 Friday local time deadline for them to cease fire and retreat or face a regional force.
Canisius Munyarugerero has told the BBC Great Lakes that the group is ignoring Wednesday’s decisions in the Angolan capital, Luanda, because “we were not invited to that meeting” to discuss the DR Congo conflict.
Leaders from DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and the former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta – who’s a mediator to the conflict – had convened in Luanda in the meeting hosted by the Angolan president.
“We M23 are not Burundians, we are not Rwandans, we are not Kenyans, not even Angolans. We are Congolese, and we are home, they are telling us to withdraw to where?” Mr Munyarugerero posed.
The M23 now occupies a big area in North Kivu province and is threatening to capture Goma, the main city in eastern Congo.
Before the war began afresh, they held positions at Sabinyo Volcano near the border with Rwanda.
The Luanda meeting decided that if M23 did not abide by the deadline, regional forces being deployed to the eastern DR Congo would enforce it.
Asked if they were ready to face a regional force, Mr Munyarugerero said: “Just know that we won’t retreat.”
Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan rebels have agreed to facilitate immediate humanitarian access to “all in need” in war-ravaged Tigray and neighbouring regions.
Saturday’s agreement followed talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi this week on the full implementation of a deal signed between the warring sides 10 days ago in South Africa to end the brutal two-year conflict in northern Ethiopia
“The parties have agreed to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access to all in need of assistance in Tigray and neighbouring regions,” a joint statement said.
The agreement was signed by Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, chief of staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces, and General Tadesse Werede, commander-in-chief of the Tigray rebel forces.
African Union mediator Olusegun Obasanjo said the deal would take “immediate effect”.
Ethiopian legislator Keiredin Tezera told Al Jazeera that aid was being sent to the areas in control of the army even before the agreement was reached on Saturday.
“This agreement may even further facilitate to deliver aid not only to the Tigray region but the neighbouring regions, which are also being affected by the conflict,” he said. “This is big news for us and not only for all of Ethiopia but also for Africa … It is significant beyond Ethiopia.”
The two sides also agreed to establish a joint committee to implement the disarming of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters, as stipulated in the ceasefire deal, the statement said.
Cessation of hostilities
After little more than a week of negotiations in the South African capital Pretoria, the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF on November 2 signed a peace deal which has been hailed by the international community as a crucial first step in ending the bloodshed.
The deal notably calls for the cessation of hostilities, restoration of humanitarian aid, the re-establishment of federal authority over Tigray and the disarming of TPLF fighters.
Ethiopia’s northernmost region is in the grip of a severe humanitarian crisis due to a lack of food and medicine, and there is limited access to basic services including electricity, banking and communications.
Tigray regional government representative in North America, Yohannes Abraha, said there have been calls for unhindered humanitarian flow to Tigray for a long time.
“There has been a very long time, since August, that there has not been any humanitarian aid into Tigray,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that nothing had materialised yet after the November 2 peace deal.
Abraha said that, among other reasons, the dire situation on the ground contributed to reaching the Pretoria outcome.
A scene from the signing ceremony in Nairobi [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP]
The African Union Commission said it “applauds the parties on these significant confidence-building measures and encourages them to continue towards the full implementation of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, as part of overall efforts to end the conflict and restore peace,security and stability in Ethiopia”.
Weaponising starvation
The conflict between the TPLF and pro-Abiy forces, which include regional fighters and the Eritrean army, has caused an untold number of deaths, forced more than two million from their homes and led to reports of horrific abuses such as rape and massacres.
Estimates of casualties have varied widely, with the United States saying that as many as half a million people have died, while the European Union’s foreign envoy Josep Borrell said that more than 100,000 people may have been killed.
UN-backed investigators have accused all sides of committing abuses but also charged that Addis Ababa had been using starvation as a weapon of war – claims denied by the Ethiopian authorities.
Abiy declared last week that his government, whose forces had claimed considerable gains on the battlefield, had secured “100 per cent” of what it had sought in the peace negotiations.
On Friday, the government said its forces controlled 70 per cent of Tigray and that aid was being sent in – claims swiftly denied by Tigrayan rebels.
Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, sent troops into Tigray in late 2020 to topple the TPLF, the region’s governing party, in response to what he said were attacks by the group on federal army camps.
The conflict capped months of simmering tensions between Abiy and the TPLF, which has dominated the national government for nearly 30 years until he took office in 2018.
Kinshasa orders Ambassador Vincent Karega to leave the country within 48 hours after accusing Kigali of supporting M23 rebels.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government has ordered Rwandan Ambassador Vincent Karega to leave the country within 48 hours after accusing Kigali of supporting M23 rebels, who have seized two towns in the DRC’s east, raising tensions between the two countries.
Saturday’s announcement by government spokesman Patrick Muyaya came after a meeting of the defence council, presided over by President Felix Tshisekedi, in the wake of rebels seizing control of Kiwanja and Rutshuru in the province of North Kivu.
DR Congo has repeatedly accused Rwanda of backing the rebels, an allegation Rwanda has repeatedly denied. The decision to expel Karega is expected to further ratchet up tensions between the two countries whose relations have been fraught for decades.
Muyaya said that in recent days “a massive arrival of elements of the Rwandan element to support the M23 terrorists” against DR Congo’s troops had been observed.
“This criminal and terrorist adventure” had forced thousands of people to flee their homes, he added.
Rebel advance
The latest advance by rebel fighters prompted the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, to increase its “troop alert level” and boost support for the army.
Fierce fighting erupted on Saturday morning between the Congolese army and M23 rebels in Kiwanja, which is 70km (43 miles) from the North Kivu capital, Goma.
John Banyene, a local civil society leader, later told The Associated Press that the rebels now controlled both Kiwanja and Rutshuru Centre. AFP, quoting unnamed officials, said the rebels had seized control of the towns.
“As we speak, we confirm that the M23 rebels and their allies control the town of Kiwanja, but the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo are not giving up,” Banyene told journalists in Goma.
The M23 was formed in 2012, claiming to defend the interests of Congolese Tutsis, a group sharing the ethnicity of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, against Hutu armed groups, seizing Goma, the largest city in DR Congo’s east, the same year. After a peace deal in 2013, many M23 fighters were integrated into the national military.
The group resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years, accusing the government of having failed to honour an agreement over the demobilisation of its fighters.
It has since captured swathes of territory in North Kivu, including the key town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June.
Since May, M23 has waged its most sustained offensive in years, killing dozens and forcing at least 40,000 people to flee in only a week’s time. Nearly 200,000 people had already been displaced over the past year even before the latest surge in violence.
The M23’s resurgence has inflamed regional tensions and spurred deadly protests against the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC, which civilians accuse of failing to protect them.
Rwanda denies the charges and counters that DR Congo works with the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis, which Kinshasa also denies.
In August, a report by UN experts said they had “solid evidence” that members of Rwanda’s armed forces were conductingoperations in eastern DR Congo in support of the M23 rebel group.
Rwanda, though, has repeatedly denied the allegations and has accused Congolese forces of injuring several civilians in cross-border shelling.
Forces in the embattled northern Ethiopian region of Tigray say government forces and their allies have reached Shire, one of the country’s largest cities, and that they are still engaged in a “life and death struggle.”
On Monday, the Ethiopian government said it intended to control airports in Tigray.
“During war movement out of areas is natural,” a statement by the Tigrayan rebel forces says.
It called the entering into the Shire by the government “temporary”.
Fighting broke out in August after five months of relative peace and there are growing concerns that the humanitarian crisis is worsening with transportation of aid into the region suspended because of the renewed clashes.
Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes fearing the violence in the region, the Tigrayan force’s statement says.
Tigrayan forces have called on the international community to “fulfill its duty and stop the hostilities”.
They also called on Tigrayans to continue fighting “in this crucial phase of the conflict”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said that the situation in Tigray was “spiralling out of control” and hostilities must end immediately.
The Ethiopian government says it intends to seize control of airports and other federal facilities in the Tigray area “to protect Ethiopia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
In a statement, it stated that this was necessary to preserve its airspace, which had been “violated by hostile foreign actors supporting the TPLF [rebel fighters].”
It said the government would also be able to expedite humanitarian aid to the people in the region affected by the ongoing war.
The statement signals fighting could go on despite calls for de-escalation – even as it expressed commitment to resolve the crisis through an African Union-led process.
“We believe that there is a need for a comprehensive andnegotiated settlement that would bring about durable peace,” the statement added.
The government’s remarks follow a call by the AU for the warring parties to recommit to peace talks.
Tigrayan forces said on Sunday in response to the AU call that they were “ready to abide by an immediate cessation of hostilities”.
They also called on the global community “to compel the Eritrean army to withdraw from Tigray”. Eritrea, an ally of the Ethiopian government, has been aiding its neighbour in the fight against the Tigray forces.
On Monday, the Ethiopian government pledged to avoid urban combats and provide humanitarian access in areas that the government controls.
However, several international voices have sounded alarm bells that cities like the Shire have been bombarded and civilians killed, including at least one humanitarian worker.
In our series of letters from African journalists, Umaru Fofana looks back at how reporting on Sierra Leone’s civil war 25 years ago got personal and what dangers correspondents still face today.
WARNING: This report contains descriptions some readers will find disturbing.
During the bloody rebel war that raged in Sierra Leone for more than a decade, fake news and rumours abounded – without the aid of social media.
At a time when only the elite had landlines and there was no internet or mobile telephones, reporters often had to go in person to find out information.
I would then have to go the telecommunications HQ in the capital, Freetown, to make a reverse-charge call to London to be able to file a report for the BBC.
Six years in to the conflict, on 9 October 1997, I ventured out to confirm a report that the military’s HQ had been bombed by a Nigerian military jet.
The junta that took power in May 1997 teamed up with the RUF rebels
In apparent reprisal, the soldiers were said to have set ablaze the private residence of the exiled president.
It was at the stage in the war when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels – notorious for being intoxicated on drugs and hacking off people’s limbs – had teamed up with the military junta who had recently taken power.
Nigerian troops – part of the West African intervention force known as Ecomog – were stationed in the outskirts of the capital, with no mandate to intervene at the time.
I set off, walking past a roadblock manned by soldiers and their rebel allies. Somehow they knew I was headed to the burned-out residence.
About half a dozen of them chased me. “Stop!” they shouted, cocking their guns. “Running away would be fatal,” I said to myself. So I stood still.
When they got closer, one of them pulled a trigger. My right tibia bone was shattered.
I hopped on my left leg as they goaded me to their checkpoint. They kept kicking and hitting me whenever I fell down, shouting at me to get up.
Kunti Kamara, a former commander of the Liberian rebels, will begin his trial in a Paris court on Monday.
Mr. Kamara is accused of rape, murder, and torture committed during the nation’s first civil war in the 1990s and is facing trial under universal jurisdiction, an international law that recognizes that the prosecution of some crimes transcends all borders.
He denies the accusations.
“Since the start, Mr Kunti Kamara has indicated that he has nothing to do with these events, that he is not involved in the crimes he’s accused of,” his lawyer is quoted as saying by French state-owned television France24.
