Blasts kill 11 at M23 rally in eastern DRC

Crowds fled as people were killed or wounded amid gunfire and explosions at a rally held by rebel M23 leader Corneille Nangaa in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) eastern city of Bukavu on Thursday.

Nangaa said at a press conference later in the day explosions at the rally killed 11 people and wounded 65 others. He said grenades used in the attack were the same type as those used by Burundi’s army in the DRC. But Reuters could not independently verify this. Earlier, he said by phone that DRC President Felix Tshisekedi had ordered the attack, without providing evidence.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

Nangaa also said he was not wounded and other senior members of the rebel grouping were safe. M23 is battling the DRC’s army, which is backed by SA Development Community forces, and has seized swathes of territory in the east since the beginning of the year. Hundreds of rebel groups operate in the DRC, but M23 is the strongest.

On Thursday, videos from Bukavu showed people running through the streets, with some bleeding or carrying limp bodies.

Rwanda is accused of backing Nangaa’s M23 rebel group, which Kigali denies. 

In his speech before the blasts and shooting started, Nangaa told a crowd of thousands that M23 had come to Bukavu to bring security. It was his first address to residents since M23 captured the city on February 16. The M32’s advance has stirred fears of a regional war that could draw in DRC's neighbours. Fourteen SA troops have been killed in the conflict this year.

The shooting started at the end of the meeting, one resident said. “There was shooting in all directions. We don’t know what happened. There are injured people, dead people, I don’t know.”

M23 has been trying to demonstrate that it can restore order in the territory it has captured from the DRC’s army, and has reopened ports and schools. This M23 advance is the gravest escalation in more than a decade of the long-running conflict in the eastern DRC, rooted in the spillover of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into DRC and the struggle for control of its vast minerals resources.

Rwanda has said it is defending itself against the threat from a Hutu militia, which it says is fighting with the Congolese military. With Staff Writer

Reuters