UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United States warned Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the UN on Tuesday that they “must walk back from the brink of war,” as tensions rise between the neighbors.
Kinshasa, the United Nations and Western countries say Rwanda is supporting a rebel group active in eastern DRC in a bid to control vast mineral resources in the region, an allegation Kigali denies.
After several months of relative calm, intense fighting resumed last month around the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.
“Parties to the conflict and regional actors should immediately resume (peace) processes — diplomatic efforts, not military conflict, are the only path for a negotiated solution and a sustainable peace,” said Robert Wood, an American envoy to the UN, at an emergency meeting concerning the DRC.
Kigali “must also withdraw Rwandan forces from Congolese territory and immediately remove any and all of its surface to air missile systems, which credible reporting indicates they’ve been responsible for intentionally firing on the aerial assets of MONUSCO,” the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC, Wood added.
After years of dormancy, the M23 (March 23 Movement) took up arms again in late 2021 and has since seized vast swathes of North Kivu province.
Since early February, Goma, which stands between Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border, has been practically cut off from the country’s interior.
Demonstrators rallied in Goma on Monday in protest at what they said was inaction by the international community in the face of the swirling violence.
The DRC’s military is supported by myriad local armed groups, two foreign private military companies and the presence of UN peacekeepers and troops from the Southern African Development Community.
Rwanda warned against the “externalization” of the conflict into Rwanda.
“The recent escalation of the conflict in eastern DRC comes in the context of... public declarations by the presidents of DRC and Burundi who support regime change in Rwanda and heightened ethnic tension in the region,” said Rwanda’s envoy to the UN Ernest Rwamucyo.
The head of MONUSCO in DRC, Bintou Keita, warned about the possible spread of the conflict, as well as the dire humanitarian situation on the ground.
On Tuesday the UN called for $2.6 billion in aid to “provide live-saving assistance and protection to 8.7 million people,” according to its humanitarian response plan for the year.
“More than 25 million people are food-insecure, while acute malnutrition affects more than 8 million people, mainly children under the age of five,” the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement.
DR Congo, Rwanda ‘must walk back from brink of war’: US
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DR Congo, Rwanda ‘must walk back from brink of war’: US
- After several months of relative calm, intense fighting resumed last month around the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province
Russia strikes power plant, kills four in Ukraine barrage
KHARKIV: Russia battered Ukraine with more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones early Tuesday, killing four people and pummelling another power plant, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s brittle energy system.
An AFP journalist in the eastern Kharkiv region, where four people were killed, saw firefighters battling a fire at a postal hub and rescue workers helping survivors by lamp light in freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several hundred thousand” households near Kyiv were without power after the strikes, and again called on allies to bolster his country’s air defense systems.
“The world can respond to this Russian terror with new assistance packages for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia must come to learn that cold will not help it win the war,” he added.
Authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding region rolled out emergency power cuts in the hours after the attack, saying freezing temperatures were complicating their work.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider, said Russian forces had struck one of its power plants, saying it was the eighth such attack since October.
The operator did not reveal which of its plants was struck, but said Russia had attacked its power plants over 220 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Daily attacks
Moscow has pummelled Ukraine with daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid height of winter.
The Ukrainian air force said that Tuesday’s bombardment included 25 missiles and 247 drones.
The Kharkiv governor gave the death toll and added that six people were wounded in the overnight hit outside the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv.
White helmeted emergency workers could be seen clambering through the still-smoking wreckage of a building occupied by postal company Nova Poshta, in a video posted by the regional prosecutor’s office.
Within Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a Russian long-range drone struck a medical facility for children, causing a fire. No casualties were reported.
The overnight strikes hit other regions as well, including southern city Odesa.
Residential buildings, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged, with at least five people wounded in two waves of attacks, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said.
Russia’s use last week of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine sparked condemnation from Kyiv’s allies, including Washington, which called it a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation of this war.”
Moscow on Monday said the missile hit an aviation repair factory in the Lviv region and that it was fired in response to Ukraine’s attempt to strike one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences — a claim Kyiv denies and that Washington has said it does not believe happened.
