AFRICA/DR CONGO – North Kivu: Missionary warns of conflicting experiences and media campaigns
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – “So far as we all know, the rebels are nonetheless advancing in direction of Goma. The M23 militias are at present 35 km from the capital of North Kivu,” says Pierre Kabeza, a former commerce unionist now representing the rights of Congolese kids and former president of the youth associations of the South Kivu area within the east of the nation, to Fides.
In the meantime, the Congolese military had introduced that that they had rejected the M23 guerrilla offensive in town of Sake (see Fides, 9/2/2023). In accordance with journalistic sources, they accompanied the Congolese army to Sake, the place calm was reportedly restored after a part of the inhabitants fled when the insurgent advance was introduced. “Yesterday (February 9) I acquired movies of civilians fleeing Sake, largely ladies and kids,” confirms Pierre Kabeza.
Radio Okapi, which works with the UN Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO), experiences on observers from the Bambo area reporting that the M23 militias are mentioned to be committing critical violence in opposition to civilians there. Folks have fled in giant numbers to Kibirizi, Kirima, Bambo and different locations, and eyewitnesses report that the rebels within the space are finishing up arbitrary executions and atrocities in opposition to civilians.
A missionary with a few years of expertise within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the meantime, requires warning with media experiences. “We now have to watch out,” Italian missionary Father Loris Cattani of the Xaverian Missionaries tells Fides.
“As in each warfare, there are additionally propaganda campaigns and types of media warfare by the assorted opponents in North Kivu,” and he provides an instance: “Rumors and movies” are meant to “show the presence of Russian mercenaries working alongside the battle Congolese military”. “A presence that has by no means been confirmed, except one confuses the technicians and pilots of planes and helicopters of the Armed Forces, and possibly additionally MONUSCO, with members of the Wagner militias”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 10/2/2023)
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