Congo rebels advance despite cease-fire

updated 6:48 p.m. ET Nov. 17, 2008

KANYABAYONGA, Congo - On one side of this mountaintop ghost town, a line of black-booted rebels approaches on foot with rockets and tin boxes of ammunition, seizing new territory with each footstep despite promises of a cease-fire.

On the other side, government soldiers in flip-flops balancing portable generators and luggage on their heads have already begun to flee.

In between, the vast Central African nation's deepening humanitarian crisis is laid bare: thousands of desperate civilians who used to live in this eastern Congo town huddle against coils of concertina wire surrounding a base for U.N. peacekeepers, waiting nervously for the rebels to arrive.

"We are hungry and thirsty, but we don't want any aid. We want security," said 30-year-old Jeff Machozi, who built a makeshift tent here three days ago with tree branches and bamboo he ripped out of the earth. "We want this war to stop."

Clashes between fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda on the one side and the army and its allied spear-wielding militias on the other exploded in August and has displaced at least 250,000 people.

But those refugee figures do not include remote towns like Kanyabayonga, whose entire population has fled, or Kayna, another town just to the north, which was also virtually deserted Monday.

Kanyabayonga is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of the regional capital, Goma.

Carving out more territory
Though rebel leader Laurent Nkunda told visiting U.N. envoy Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday that he was committed to a cease-fire, his troops have been carving out an even greater territory in the remote hills north of Goma.

Early Monday, the rebels took control of Rwindi, the headquarters of Virunga National Park, after a night spent trading artillery and mortar fire with army forces. Rwindi is 10 miles (17 kilometers) south of Kanyabayonga.

U.N. peacekeepers at a base in Rwindi that was between the two sides said rounds flew overhead for more than an hour. Some exploded nearby, and one Indian soldier in a trench was wounded in the head by shrapnel, U.N. commanders at the base said.

Two government vehicles full of ammunition burned in the night, though peacekeepers said it wasn't clear if soldiers destroyed them by accident or to keep rebels from taking them.

Video   Conflict in Congo AP Photojournalist Jerome Delay reports from eastern Congo on the refugee crisis and the continued fighting between rebel and government soldiers. msnbc.com

By Monday morning, peacekeepers said they woke to find rebels in the town.

Monday afternoon, rebel fighters were already marching single-file by the side of the road north toward where Kanyabayonga sits on a hilltop. Wearing crisp military uniforms and black Wellington boots, they carried rockets, generators and Kalashnikov rifles.

Halfway up the road that zigzags to the top of the densely forested mountain, an army soldier waved a car of approaching journalists to stop — his presence marking the front line.

Kanyabayonga itself was virtually deserted, except for handfuls of people still fleeing with everything they owned. Women carried babies and plastic yellow Jerry cans and rolled mattresses on their backs. Children, doubled over under heavy loads, trekked behind.

Soldiers in retreat
Hundreds of soldiers could be seen in apparent retreat, walking down the same roads pushing wooden bikes laden with sacks, and carrying ammunition and bundles of belongings on their heads.

Hundreds of other troops stayed behind, though, scattered across the town of empty straw huts, their dry-mud walls held together with sticks.

Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters Government troops leave Kanyabayonga on Monday.

One soldier in flip flops, Jerome Roger, said government troops had fled Rwindi on the orders of their unit commander. He said he did not know his army's plans or strategy — he and his colleagues had no radios to communicate with other units.

"We retreated from Rwindi; maybe we'll retreat from here," Roger said, shrugging his shoulders and smiling wildly as marijuana smoke wafted through the air.

On a hill near the U.N. base in Kanyabayonga, fearful residents tethered plastic tents to the jagged coils of concertina wire surrounding it. Others jammed tree branches into the ground, trying to build shelters from whatever they could find.

John Mbusa, 60, said he fled Kanyabayonga last week after an earlier round of fighting drew near. He fled north with his wife and eight children, sleeping outside. Returning four days later, he found soldiers pillaging the town.

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