GOMA, Congo — U.N. forces joined Congolese soldiers on the front line Saturday where they fought rebels in the country’s volatile east for hours, officials said, as border tensions escalated between Rwanda and Congo.
Scores of angry residents took to the streets of Goma in protest after several days of violence that have left at least seven dead in this city of nearly a million people near the Congo-Rwanda border. Two civilians died in the demonstrations, and the United Nations called for a joint investigation.
“We are using artillery, indirect fire with mortars and our aviation, and at the moment we have troops in the front line alongside the FARDC (government forces),” said the U.N. force commander in Congo, Gen. Dos Santos Cruz.
The United Nations’ new intervention brigade, which has a stronger mandate than past U.N. peacekeeping missions and is authorized to fight the rebel forces operating in eastern Congo, engaged last week in fighting for the first time since it was created in March.
There has been widespread skepticism in Congo that the intervention brigade will be a game-changing addition to the existing U.N. force, which stood by when M23 fighters briefly captured Goma late last year.
Congo’s information minister blamed a rocket attack that killed three people Saturday in Goma on neighboring Rwanda, which has long been accused of supporting the eastern Congolese rebel movement known as M23.
“We wonder, for how long will the international community continue to tolerate these offenses?” said Lambert Mende, a spokesman for the Congolese government.
However, the U.N. force commander told journalists he had no doubt the rockets were fired from M23 rebel positions.
Rwanda, which has vigorously denied allegations by the United Nations and others that it has provided support to the M23 rebels fighting the Congolese government, also accused Congolese forces of attacking Rwanda. The Rwandan army said mortar fire landed in several villages along the border Friday.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Nzabamwita, a spokesman for Rwanda’s military, said “acts of provocation that endanger the lives of Rwandan citizens will not remain unanswered indefinitely.”
