KINSHASA (AFP) — Rebels and pro-government militia have killed at least 20 civilians in recent fighting, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, on the eve of a regional summit on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"The rebels of Laurent Nkunda and the pro-government Mai Mai militia have deliberately killed civilians," caught up in the fighting in Kiwanja, in the troubled eastern Nord-Kivu province, the rights watchdog said in a statement.
The news came regional leaders headed to the Kenyan capital Nairobi ahead of an emergency summit Friday on the crisis, which will also be attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Human Rights Watch said at least 20 people had been killed and 33 others wounded in the battle for the control of Kiwanja and during ensuing mop-up operations by Nkunda's troops.
One of the fatalities was Congolese journalist Alfred Nzonzo Bitwahiki who works for local radio station Radio Racou, said the HRW statement, quoting witnesses.
Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) fought the Mai Mai at Kiwanja, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Nord-Kivu's regional capital Goma, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
After retaking control, "Nkunda's rebels ordered the 30,000 residents to leave the town and then systematically hunted down and killed civilians, mainly men, for backing their enemies," HRW said.
"Kiwanja residents said they heard screams during the night and saw bodies in the street the next morning."
AFP journalists saw 12 bodies lying in the streets and houses on Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, Kiwanja, which is near the key administrative town of Rutshuru in the same region of Nord-Kivu, was deserted, with shops closed and only Nkunda's armed rebels on the streets.
Rebels soldiers were involved in fresh fighting Thursday elsewhere in the region, UN peacekeepers reported.
They captured Nyanzale, an important army base in Nord-Kivu, as government forces fled, said Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, spokesman for the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUC.
Dietrich said MONUC had dispatched armoured personnel carriers to the area to halt the fighting and verify reports from villagers that the town of Kikuku a few kilometres away had also fallen to the rebels.
Nkunda's CNDP fighters strengthened their grip on much of Nord-Kivu in recent days, a day after President Joseph Kabila's prime minister, Adolphe Muzito, visited Goma, the regional capital.
Muzito said he was "ready to listen, to receive the grievances of other groups... including those of the CNDP."
The seizure of Nyanzale, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Goma, was a fresh blow to the government of President Jospeh Kabila, whose armed forces appear to be unable to defend territory in Nord-Kivu province bordering Rwanda.
The rebels blamed government forces fighting alongside Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels for having started the latest fighting.
"We didn't respond at first but then they came back at us. We were obliged to respond and clear them out," said rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa.
"Our intention is not to take territory, but to say to the government that they must negotiate," added Bisimwa.
Bisimwa said the rebels, which have taken a vast swathe of Nord-Kivu province in a two-week offensive, "expect nothing" to emerge from Friday's summit.
"There have already been so many conferences of this kind," he said.
"What we want is a meeting between Congolese -- the CNDP and the government of Kinshasa must meet to negotiate peace," Bisimwa told AFP by telephone.
CNDP fighters first took Kiwanja last week as part of an offensive that brought them to the gates of Goma.
On October 29 they declared the ceasefire -- ostensibly to allow tens of thousands of civilians to return to their homes behind the rebel lines.
The renewed clashes Tuesday and Wednesday drove thousands of people from Kiwanja to the town of Rutshuru, five kilometres away, or to seek refuge at the nearby UN peacekeepers' base.
Thousands also spent the night sleeping in the open in central Rutshuru.
Meanwhile Amnesty International urged the UN Security Council to send more troops and equipment to MONUC "so that it can better protect civilians" and ensure access to humanitarian assistance.
India said it was "very concerned" about its 8,000 troops in the UN mission and would send 1,200 specially-trained Gurkha soldiers to join MONUC "within a month".
Indian military sources said they were having increasing difficulties in supplying troops in the field with ammunition and rations because of the deteriorating situation.
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