Fighting resumes in Bunia

After a brief lull, tension is again “very high” in the northeastern Congolese town of Bunia with more gunfire reported on Thursday, the governing Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML) said. Fierce fighting resumed on Wednesday between troops loyal to RCD-ML leader Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and those of his rival and former deputy, Mbusa Nyamwisi, resulting in an unknown number of deaths and injuries, RCD-ML officials said. “Thursday’s attack lasted about 10 minutes and the Presidential Private Unit (PPU) contained it,” RCD-ML spokesman Jean-Ernest Louis Kayiviro told IRIN.

Uganda’s presidential adviser on Congo, Colonel Kahinda Otafiire, flew into Bunia on Thursday with a message from the Ugandan authorities “He delivered a message from Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni informing Wamba that a meeting between the professor and his rivals would take place in the next two days,” Kayiviro said. [For full story see separate IRIN item, headlined “DRC: High tension in Bunia after renewed fighting”]