Congo's army and Burundian allies slow M23 rebel's southern march

Congolese troops with support from Burundi's army appeared on Friday to be holding back a push south by Rwandan-backed rebels seeking to expand their grip on eastern Congo in a weeks-old advance that has raised fears of a broader regional conflict.

Earlier this week the Tutsi-led M23 rebels seized Goma, the largest city in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo - home to lucrative gold, coltan and tin ore mines - before shifting their focus to Bukavu in neighbouring South Kivu province.

After early progress, however, three sources including South Kivu governor Jean-Jacques Purusi Sadiki told Reuters the Congolese army and its allies were succeeding in holding the rebels back.

One person with direct knowledge of the fighting said a force of around 1,500 including Congolese troops, Burundian soldiers and local militia fighters had deployed to defend the town of Nyabibwe some 50 km (30 miles) from Bukavu.

The source declined to be identified for security reasons.

"The risk of regionalisation of the conflict is real," one African diplomat told Reuters on Friday. "The Rwandan, Congolese and Burundian armies are already clashing on the ground in eastern Congo."

Well-trained and professionally armed, M23 is the latest in a long line of Rwandan-supported, Tutsi-led rebel movements to emerge in Congo's volatile eastern borderlands in the wake of two successive wars stemming from Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Kigali has rejected the findings of U.N. investigators that it has sent thousands of soldiers and equipment into Congo to support M23.

RISK OF REGIONAL WAR

Relations between Rwanda and Burundi are already hostile. Fighting between their two armies in Congo would heighten the risk, expressed by the United Nations, of a repeat of the kind of regional war that killed millions between 1996 and 2003, most from hunger and disease.

The U.N. said on Thursday that there were reports of Rwandan forces crossing into Congo in the direction of Bukavu. Rwanda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"It is a known fact that Burundians are fighting alongside the (Congolese army)," M23 spokesman Willy Nangaa told Reuters. "There are thousands of them."

U.N. sources estimate there are several thousand Burundian troops, mainly in South Kivu, where they are deployed in support of the Congolese army at the request of the government in Kinshasa.

On Sunday, Rwanda told the U.N. Security Council that there were 10,000 Burundian troops there.

Burundi's military has declined to comment on this week's developments in Congo.

A Burundian official, who asked not to be named, acknowledged that, after having received increasing requests for help from Kinshasa in the past two years, Burundi had deployed between 8,000 and 10,000 soldiers in Congo.

"Our country has also paid a heavy price, which is why we have asked our two neighbours to sign a ceasefire and negotiate," the official said, referring to Congo and Rwanda.

Uganda, meanwhile, which also has troops in eastern Congo to take on Ugandan rebels based there, on Friday said it would "adopt a forward defensive posture" due to the fighting between Congo's army and M23.

FEELING SURROUNDED

Global powers including the United States, Britain and France have called for an end to the fighting and have sought to pressure Rwandan President Paul Kagame to end his support for M23.

Following a meeting with Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi in Kinshasa, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was in Kigali to meet with Kagame on Friday.

But analysts say a reluctance by world powers to take on Rwanda, other global distractions and on-the-ground military realities will complicate efforts to defeat the rebels.

Bukavu last fell to rebels in 2004 to a previous Tutsi-led insurgency that rights groups accused of civilian killings and widespread rape.

At the packed football stadium in Bukavu on Thursday, authorities sought to recruit civilian volunteers to defend the city as the crowd chanted "Free Goma".

"It's been 30 years that we've been victims of war and done nothing. But today, the youth are standing up to be on the front lines," said Fiacre Kalugusha, a man in the crowd.

Bukavu residents told Reuters on Friday that the city's inhabitants had begun stocking up on food, torches and batteries, or fleeing along the road towards the border with Burundi.

"Sometimes gunshots ring out in the city and this also contributes to reinforcing the psychosis," said Helene, a Bukavu resident. "We feel surrounded by M23, and it is scary."