Kinshasa - Around 12 000 people have fled recent fighting
between rival factions of the M23 rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday, as a local doctor warned of
"methodic" rape in the troubled country.
"We estimate that around 4 000 households, or around 12
000 people, have been displaced in the zone of Rutshuru" in North-Kivu
province, Simplice Kpanji of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Kinshasa told AFP.
Some people have fled to Ishasha, a government-controlled
post on the border with Uganda, he said, while around 1 000 "have settled
in Kiwandja, near to the base of the UN mission MONUSCO".
Some 1 500 more were sheltering in a primary school at a
military base in the north-eastern town of Rumangabo which serves as the
headquarters of M23.
A doctor in South Kivu province meanwhile raised the alarm
on the "methodic, systematic and massive" rape of women in the
strife-ridden region.
According to Denis Mukwege, whose local charity Panzi helps
rape victims, the rate of sexual assault went up in 2012 and looks set to be as
high in 2013, he warned.
500 000 people displaced
Mukwege told a press conference in Kinshasa on Tuesday that
he receives around 300 victims of rape or sexual assault for treatment every
month.
For the past two decades, DR Congo's mineral rich east has
been a haven for armed groups who have left a trail of bloodshed and killing in
their wake, and raped tens of thousands of women.
Violence surged again last May when the Congolese army began
fighting the M23 rebel group, formed by army mutineers.
But despite a peace deal signed on 24 February by 11 African
nations to bring stability to the region, infighting continues between two
factions of the M23.
One faction supports the movement's military chief, General
Sultani Makenga, while the other is loyal to its political leader Jean-Marie
Runiga.
The M23 was founded by former fighters in a Tutsi rebel
group whose members were integrated into the regular army under a 2009 peace
deal that they claim was never fully implemented.
DR Congo's neighbours Rwanda and Uganda are suspected of
financing the rebels but deny the accusations.
According to UNHCR, 500 000 people have been displaced in
North Kivu, the heart of the M23 rebellion, since the resurge in fighting last
May, while a total 2.6 million have fled their homes across eastern DR Congo.
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