GOMA, DRCongo (AFP) — Fighting resumed between government troops and rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday in a new breach of a truce agreement, as mediation efforts appeared doomed to failure.
The governor of Nord-Kivu province, Julien Pakulu, said forces of renegade general Laurent Nkunda had attacked positions of the government's 7th Brigade at Katsiru, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Goma.
Bertrand Bisimwa, a senior official of Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), for his part accused the army of launching the first attack.
"The FARDC (government troops) attacked us early this morning at Mweso and Katsiru. But this didn't come unexpected because they had built up their positions for two days," Bisimwa told AFP.
Early Friday reinforcements of the 14th FARDC Brigade arrived at Goma habour by ship across Lake Kivu from Bukavu, the main town of Sud Kivu province, AFP saw.
Another local official, Jason Luneno, said the CNDP had seized a number of government positions, as civilians fled the fighting.
A spokesman for the United Nations mission in DRC (MONUC), Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, confirmed that clashes had occurred around Katsiru.
"We sent forces to the scene but local people stoned their vehicles," he told AFP.
On Wednesday demonstrators in Rutshuru, north of Goma, attacked UN peacekeepers and burned one of their vehicles, accusing them of siding with the rebels following earlier fighting between the two sides.
Peacekeepers had to use their firearms to be able to withdraw, wounding one demonstrator.
MONUC spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg said the demonstrators had "obviously been used".
"MONUC greatly regrets these acts of violence against the international community and its personnel," she said in Kinshasa.
"Such unacceptable acts threaten to discourage those who are only there to assist in restoring the authority of the state ... to the benefit of the population."
MONUC had called for government troops to hand back positions they seized from Nkunda's forces, and for both sides "to avoid all actions likely to result in a new escalation of violence."
A deal in January, known as the Goma Agreement, committed the warring factions in the region to a ceasefire, but armed clashes have continued and there have been numerous attacks on civilians.
The fighting resumed after a short lull since August 28 when clashes took place in the hills near Rutshuru, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Goma.
Kinshasa has since closed the key Bunagana border post with Uganda which allows rebel general Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People to set its hands on customs paid for merchandise and fund itself.
MONUC spokeswoman van den Wildenberg "welcomed this courageous decision".
"We have information that armed groups such as the CNDP are supplied through this border post. State authority will be strengthened by closing the border," she said.
But MONUC is also under attack from the government in Kinshasa.
"We want the international community to do its job... We want it to put pressure on those behind the scene who arm the bandits," Defence Minister Chikez Diemu said on the UN's Okapi radio station.
Critics have accused neighbouring Rwanda to back rebel general Nkunda.
In 1994 a genocide in Rwanda rapidly spread to DR Congo's rich Kivu region leading to fighting, insecurity, a refugee crisis and the pillaging of natural resources.
The United States has also been criticised to fan insecurity in the region by its support for Rwanda.
On Friday the latest upheaval in the east of mineral-rich DR Congo led the daily newspaper Le Potentiel to carry the headline "Conflagration in the east imminent".
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