Wearing T-shirts and flip-flops, scores of young men lined up outside a stadium in eastern DR Congo on Friday, ready to take on the latest armed group to unleash bloodshed and terror in this violence-scarred, mineral-rich corner of Africa.”I am ready to die for my country,” said Juvenal Bahati Muhigirwa Ndagano as he waited to enlist to fight alongside the Congolese army against the advancing Rwanda-backed M23 armed group, estimated to be just 80 kilometres (50 miles) away.Just days ago, M-23 captured Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province, which lies on the northern tip of the immense Lake Kivu that separates east DR Congo from Rwanda.The group has pushed on south, toward Bukavu, a city home to two million people that lies on the southern tip of the lake and is the main city of the South Kivu region.The latest violence to wrack the mineral-rich region has killed at least 700 people and wounded another 2,800 since Sunday, according to UN estimates.The weeks-long M-23 offensive is the latest to scar a region that has seen relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups kill an estimated six million people over three decades.Provincial authorities in South Kivu on Thursday called a three-day recruitment drive for “volunteers” looking to join the fight against the M23.Since 2021 groups of armed militia — known as “Wazalendo” or patriots in Swahili — have been fighting alongside the Congolese armed forces.Scores of young men carried out drills on the red earth inside the stadium on Friday.”Our principles are to move forward, we must not go backwards,” Marcellin Bahaya, a militia fighter in charge of mobilisation, told new recruits.- ‘We will fight’ -“We will fight until the Rwandans return home, if possible, we will reach them in Rwanda,” said another fighter, Amani Wangwabo, who has in combat since 1996.The men volunteering will face M-23 forces equipped with drones, surface-to-air missiles and laser-targeted mortars.Wangwabo said the fighters would “use the charms that our ancestors give us so as not to die by bullets”.Mushagasha Habamungu, a teacher hoping to enlist, said: “We must not accept that our sovereignty is attacked by small countries like Rwanda with the complicity of the international community.” Bahaya warned the volunteers to “be disciplined” and “not harass the population”. In a region where nearly three-quarters of the population live on less than $2.15 (2.07 euros) a day, the “Wazalendo” fighters have been known to pillage.Provincial interior minister Murhula Albert Kahasha told new recruits that before going into combat they would receive “emergency ideological training”, although he did not elaborate.”They will be in groups of five or six under the supervision of an inspector and will join the front (line) in less than four days in the Kalehe territory,” he said.
Fri, 31 Jan 2025 19:39:59 GMT
