More soldiers flee Katanga fighting

The Zimbabwean military on Tuesday confirmed that the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) had succeeded in capturing the town of Pweto, beside Lake Moero in Katanga Province, on Monday evening after a joint attack conducted over two days. The town had been defended by the DRC army, the Forces armees congolaises (FAC), and a battalion of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), they added. The clashes had prompted a rush of government-allied soldiers to flee to neighbouring Zambia, where they joined some 500 soldiers already being held by the Zambian authorities after fleeing earlier fighting, according to diplomatic sources. In Equateur Province, meanwhile, the FAC has come under attack by the Ugandan-backed rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) on two separate fronts - north of Boende on the Tshupa River, and at Bomongo on the Ngiri River, north of the provincial capital of Mbandaka, according to army sources.