DRC civilians head home
2008-12-05 14:10
Nyamilima - Civilians returned to their homes in eastern DR Congo towns near the Ugandan border on Thursday after Laurent Nkunda's rebel movement pulled out of the area.
The market in Nyamilima, a town about 100km north of the regional capital Goma, was open and business went as usual.
Last week the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said at least 13 000 civilians had fled the area for Uganda as Tutsi rebel chief Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) advanced.
The rebels reached the town of Ishasha on the Ugandan border before pulling back 40km on Sunday and on Monday from Ishasha to Kinyandoni.
The area which is mainly populated by ethnic Hutus has been disputed by several armed groups for weeks.
On Thursday the area was under the control of Rwandan Hutu militias of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) or members of the Mai Mai militia in the Congolese Resistance Patriots (Pareco) movement, one of a number of such tribal militias that signed up to a peace pact for the two Kivu provinces last January 23.
FDLR militias and the Pareco, which are well armed and disciplined groups, were wearing olive green uniforms which made them difficult to tell apart and seemed to be working together.
In August, fresh fighting broke out in DR Congo's Nord-Kivu region, of which Goma is the provincial capital.
It pitted DR Congo's army and militia groups against Nkunda's rebels.
DR Congo's Foreign Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba arrived in Goma on Thursday for talks with his Rwandan counterpart Rosemary Museminali on the conflict in the region, where the two countries have a common border.
The two ministers have met twice before - in late October in Kinshasa and in mid-November in Kigali - to try to find a common approach to the conflict.
Kinshasa has accused Rwanda of supporting Nkunda's fighters, an accusation that Kigali denies.
Rwanda has for many years called for the disarming of Rwandan Hutu rebels belonging to the FDLR.
They fled to DR Congo after the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, and some members of the group have been accused of having taken part in the killings.