Fresh clashes erupted on Friday near Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s east between the Rwandan-backed M23 group and pro-government militia, local and security sources said.On Friday, “around 6:00 am (0400 GMT), two M23 patrol boats were hit in the Kalundu port before catching fire,” Martin Mafikiri Mashimango, a local civil society leader, told AFP.”We saw a plane bombing the the middle of Kalundu port,” said one local resident, Masumboko.Whoever occupies the strategic eastern city of Uvira, gets control of the DR Congo’s land border with Burundi, a military ally of Kinshasa. The city is home to several hundred thousand people. The army spokesman for the region, Reagan Mbuyi Kalonji, confirmed the destruction of the two M23 boats in the port of Kaludu on Lake Tanganyika.They had “contained equipment, weapons and other military material”, he told AFP.The army was putting pressure on the M23 and had “inflicted enormous losses” on them as well as capturing 13 of their number, he added.He also said there had been “intense fighting” Friday in the high country of Fizi, southeast of the South-Kivu district.Local officials said that the army, backed by the pro-government Wazalendo militia, had taken Makobola, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Uvira, from the M23, forcing them back to the hills southwest of the city.Contacted by AFP, the M23 refused to confirm or deny either the lost of its the vessels or the resumption of fighting at Makobola.- Strategic city -Clashes between M23 and pro-government forces erupted earlier in the week near Uvira when the Rwanda-backed militant and a pro-Kinshasa militia called Wazalendo traded gunfire “that could be heard across Uvira,” Mashimango had told AFP at the time. The M23 militia seized the strategic city near the border with Burundi earlier this month, shortly after the Congolese and Rwandan governments signed a peace deal in Washington that US President Donald Trump hailed as a “great miracle”.After the US accused Rwanda of violating the peace agreement it signed with its neighbour in early December, M23 said it would withdraw from Uvira.But local and security forces say plainclothes M23 members have stayed behind in the city.The DRC’s armed forces have called the M23 withdrawal promise “a media coup designed to fool public opinion” and accused the group of re-deploying in the hillsides above Uvira.
