AFRICA/DR CONGO - Bukavu: Fighting has broken out once again and Radio Maria has been hit. The situation is becoming increasingly serious in Eastern Congo.

Bukavu (Fides Agency) - Fighting has broken out once again in Bukavu, a city in northern Kivu region, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC), which has now been a prey to the fighting between the army loyal to Kinshasa and the Goma-RDC guerrilla (Congolese Union for Democracy) for a week. “Fighting started at four o’clock in the morning, spreading to several areas of the city” local sources told the Fides Agency, preferring to remain anonymous for security reasons. The RDC-Goma guerrilla soldiers operating in Bukavu are lead by Mutebusi, an officer coming from the ranks of the RDC-Goma. Its force should have been integrated within the new unified Congolese army, as required by the 2003 peace agreement, but Mutebusi opposed the governor nominated by the central governor in Kinshasa.
“Yesterday, June 1st, MONUC (the peace force of the United Nations in Congo) decreed a ceasefire in the city. The guerrilla forces, though, chose not to respect it” Fides sources say. News from the Congolese city is still fragmentary, but heavy weapons, such as mortars, are certainly being employed. “This morning the Bukavu headquarters of radio Maria and another local radio were hit” our sources say. “The thousand men of the RDC-Goma, sent to Goma to help Mutebusi’s troops remained outside the city, close to a convent of Sisters of the Resurrection and to the Seminary” say Fides sources.
“In this very moment there is a MONUC helicopter flying over the city, but we cannot understand what the UN soldiers are doing to bring peace. If Mutebusi’s guerrilla soldiers were to capture Bukavu, the Congolese peace process would enter a crisis and the role of UN in Congo would be compromised” the Fides sources conclude. (Fides Agency 2/6/2004 righe 27 parole 316).