Dissident DRC troops march
2004-06-05 11:44
Bukavu - Dissident troops who this week took the key Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bukavu were on Saturday marching towards other towns in the east of the country, witnesses and UN sources said.
One column of these men, who are led by General Laurent Nkunda, a former rebel, reportedly left Bukavu on Friday, heading northwest towards Walikale, according to the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC, Monuc.
Walikale lies on the road to Kisangani - the capital of Orientale Province - which was held by the Congolese Rally for Democracy, a Rwandan-backed former rebel group now in government, during DRC's 1998-2003 civil war.
"If the news is confirmed, the situation could be considered as serious, very serious, because it would be a very serious threat to the transition process in DRC and for the central African region," said Monuc's spokesperson in Kinshasa, Hamadoun Toure.
On Saturday, Nkunda himself denied any troop movements. His men overran Bukavu, which lies on the Rwandan border in the extreme east of DRC, on Wednesday.
One of Nkundu's officers said that another group of the dissident troops was heading west towards the town of Walungu, on the way to Kindu, capital of Maniema province.
Witnesses in Bukavu backed this up.