Attack on Uvira repulsed

Rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) said they had fought back an attack against Uvira in South Kivu on Thursday, news agencies reported. Rebel spokesman Kin-Kiey Mulumba said that about 200 attackers had tried to overrun Uvira at about 3 a.m. on Thursday, but "they were dislodged by our forces and our Rwandan and Burundian allies," AFP quoted Mulumba as saying. He said there were no civilian losses in the
attack, but one RCD soldier was killed. A local human rights group, Heritiers de la Justice, said in a statement received by IRIN on Thursday that automatic weapons fire had been heard through the night, particularly in the eastern parts of Uvira.

RCD official Bizima Karaha told IRIN on Friday the attack was carried out by Burundian rebels of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces de defense pour la democratie (CNDD-FDD) and militia allied to President Laurent-Desire Kabila. "Kabila had a hand in planning the attack to show the world that he has a presence in this area, and he used the FDD and the Mayi-Mayi", Karaha said. But a CNDD-FDD spokesman
rejected the allegation: "Our policy is to fight inside Burundi and we're progressively doing that. We did not attack Uvira," CNDD-FDD spokesman Jerome Ndiho told IRIN on Friday.