M23 tightens grip on key DRC city

THE Rwanda-backed M23 militia captured most of the key eastern DR Congo town of Uvira this week, in a move Burundi called a "middle finger" to the US after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.

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PASSENGERS are driven on motorbike taxis along a road in Uvira. Intense fighting took place this week in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the M23 group, supported by the Rwandan army, continuing its rapid advance towards Uvira.

(AFP)

Eyewitness footage whose filming location was verified showed M23 tanks rolling through the streets of Uvira, while local and military sources said the militia had control of the provincial governor's headquarters, city hall and border with neighbouring Burundi.

Streets had emptied, shops shuttered and soldiers fled after the militia's entry this week plunged the city of several hundred thousand residents into uncertainty over who was in charge.

It comes less than a year after the anti-government group seized Goma and Bukavu, two provincial capitals in the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for around three decades.

"I went to the border that separates our two countries; I saw that it's M23 fighters who are manning the checkpoint on the Congolese side," a Burundian army officer said.