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Congolese army troops have killed 23 Rwandan Hutu militia, known as Interahamwe, in the eastern province of North Kivu, an official told IRIN on Monday.
Gen Obedi Rwabasira, the commander of the Eighth Military Region of the Democratic Republic of Congo Armed Forces, said government forces killed the militia on Friday in the villages of Rubare and Kingi, north of the provincial capital, Goma.
"There were 23 dead among the Interahamwe. We also recovered 17 light weapons, FMGs [folding machine guns] and four boxes of machine-gun ammunition," Rwabasira said by telephone from Goma.
The UN Mission in the DRC could not verify Rwabasira's statements.
The DRC is emerging from a five-year civil war, which officially ended in 2002, but fighting has continued in the east, especially in the embattled Ituri District in the province of Orientale, as well as in the North and South Kivu Provinces.
In May, tensions in eastern DRC escalated after dissident soldiers loyal to Gen Laurent Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebutsi invaded the town of Bukavu, occupying it for a week. The dissidents withdrew on 8 June, and loyalist troops re-entered the town a day later. The Bukavu seizure led to a wave of instability across most the South Kivu Province.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
