(Goma) Eight blue helmets – six Pakistanis, a Russian and a Serb – died on Tuesday in the crash of a Puma helicopter from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monusco) which was flying over a combat zone between the Congolese army and the M23 rebellion in the east of the country.
Posted yesterday at 4:19 p.m.
After several months of suspicion and decades of mistrust, the army accuses Rwanda of supporting this rebellion, which the authorities in Kigali deny.
“The exact cause of the crash has not yet been determined,” the Pakistani army communications department said in a statement, announcing the death of the eight men.
Six Pakistanis are among the peacekeepers killed, he added. Shortly after, the spokesman for the Secretary General of the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, confirmed in New York the crash and specified the nationalities, Serbian and Russian, of the two other victims.
Monusco had previously announced that it had lost contact at midday with one of its helicopters on a reconnaissance mission in Tchanzu, in the territory of Rutshuru (North Kivu province), where fighting has been taking place since Monday.
The military authorities of the province affirmed that the M23 (for “Movement of March 23”) had “shot down” the apparatus, which is not confirmed by other sources.
General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the governor of North Kivu, on Monday accused the Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) of supporting the M23 which, he said, “led incursions and attacked FARDC positions” ( Congolese Armed Forces) in two localities in Rutshuru territory.
Also called the “Congolese Revolutionary Army”, the M23 comes from a former Congolese Tutsi rebellion once supported by Rwanda and Uganda. Defeated in 2013, the M23 has been talking about it again since November, attacking military positions and accusing Kinshasa of not having respected commitments on the demobilization and reintegration of its combatants.
Invited on Monday evening by TV5 Monde’s Journal Afrique, the Congolese Minister of Communication and government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, used the conditional but nevertheless drove home the point: “It is time to put an end to this form of hypocrisy which would exist or this form of complicity between the M23 and the government of Rwanda”, he declared, “because we, we want to look at Rwanda as a partner country, as we look at Uganda”.
In view of the “claims of the army” of the DRC, he added, “my colleague from Foreign Affairs will invite [mardi] the Rwandan ambassador, to come and give us an explanation”.
“Rwanda does not support the M23 politically or militarily. Commitment reaffirmed with the Minister [des Affaires étrangères] for joint verification and cooperation in relation to the ongoing allegations,” the Ambassador, Vincent Karega, tweeted after the interview.
” We are scared ”
“We categorically refute the baseless accusations” of the Congolese army, had already replied Tuesday morning the governor of the Rwandan province of the West, François Habitegeko. The Rwandan army “is in no way involved in belligerent activities” in the DRC, he added.
To support his accusations, Congolese General Ekenge said that two Rwandan soldiers had been arrested during Monday’s attacks. The two alleged soldiers, in civilian clothes, stood near him and were shown by Congolese television.
There too, Mr. Habitegeko “challenged these false allegations”. According to him, these two men were arrested “more than a month ago” and are not part of the Rwandan army.
In a video message, Willy Ngoma, spokesperson for the M23, also claimed that the movement was “Congolese” and did not receive “any help, neither near nor far, from any neighboring country”.
“We are scared,” said Kennedy Bahati, a 32-year-old biker, in Goma, like the other inhabitants of the capital of North Kivu who all said they were “tired of the war”. The M23, which briefly occupied Goma ten years ago, “is coming back again! It is clear that it is Rwanda which is behind all this and which attacked”, accuses Michael Milingano, seller of fuel.
Since the massive arrival in the DRC of Rwandan Hutu accused of having massacred the Tutsi during the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has been regularly accused by Kinshasa of incursions into the Congo and of supporting armed groups in the east of the country.
Relations calmed down with the accession to power in early 2019 of Félix Tshisekedi, who met his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on several occasions. But the renewed activity of the M23 has revived suspicion.