Masisi : strong tension in Sake following the fighting between the army and the M23

A general panic was observed this Thursday in the city of Sake,
about twenty kilometers west of Goma (capital of North Kivu) in eastern Congo following the fighting between the Congolese army and rebels of the M23. Several families have fled their households to the largest city in eastern DRC. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Hundreds of residents fled to Goma in IDP camps and host families on Thursday, February 9, 2023. Along the Goma-Sake road, trucks, motorbikes carrying IDPs and others could be seen in big numbers walking with their infants in their hands fleeing detonations of heavy and light weapons that were heard in the area.

“We are fleeing Sake because the situation is complicated in the area. Rebels are near the town of Luhonga where they have overrun”, explains Mugisho, a resident fleeing the area.

The civil society of the Kamuronza groupment (same region) seems to put things into perspective, claiming that the situation is under control and that the fighting was rather far from the city.

“It was the Mai-Mai who wanted to make an incursion here but everything is fine. The fighting is about ten kilometers from Sake to Lupango”, explained a police official in Sake who called on the population to calm down.

Violent fighting has been recorded for a week between the Congolese army and the M23 rebels in several villages in the Kamuronza and Matanda groupments in Masisi territory. The army tries to contain the armed group with heavy artillery and airstrikes.

The former Tutsi rebellion, which took up arms again at the end of 2021, accusing Congolese authorities of not having respected their commitments on the reintegration of its fighters, has taken over several localities in the province of North Kivu since mid-June 2022, including Bunagana, the border city with Uganda.

Congolese authorities remain convinced that it enjoys the support of Rwanda, which the Rwandan government continues to brush aside, accusing Kinshasa in turn of “collaborating with the Rwandan FDLR genocidaires by providing them with uniforms, ammunition and weapons “with the aim of” destabilizing its territory”.