CONGO: Hundreds of renegade troops pulled out of Congo's border town of Bukavu yesterday, but the killing of two UN peacekeepers in a nearby city raised fears of fresh violence in the vast country's lawless east.
Under pressure to withdraw from the UN and international mediators, hundreds of fighters loyal to dissident commander Gen Laurent Nkunda headed north of Bukavu yesterday, although UN peacekeepers on the ground remained cautious.
"We will monitor the movement very closely because he [Nkunda] made a similar commitment on this which he did not respect," said UN spokesman Sebastien Lapierre in Bukavu.
UN and Congolese military officials said two South African peacekeepers had been shot dead yesterday after their convoy was ambushed just outside Goma, some 120 kilometres north of Bukavu and also on the border with Rwanda. "Two South Africans were shot dead," Gen Obed Rwibasira, the army commander of the North Kivu province, said by phone from Goma.
In Kinshasa, UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure said nine peacekeepers had also been wounded in the shooting.
Gen Rwibasira said the attackers were Interahamwe, Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled into Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide, but the UN said it did not know who was responsible.
Congo's turbulent east has plunged into a fresh spiral of violence threatening to derail its fragile peace process since renegade troops seized Bukavu last week, raising fears of a wider war. The Congolese Red Cross said 90 people had died in more than a week of fighting.
Earlier yesterday, Gen Nkunda - whose troops are thought to number 4,000 - said his mission had been accomplished and that he was leaving Bukavu.
"I have decided unilaterally to go outside the town. We are going to stay beyond the airport at Kavumu, \ give a chance to the government to solve its problem," he told reporters.
The assault on Bukavu threatened the stability of Africa's third largest country as Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila struggles to restore a central administration after five years of war.
It also reignited tension with neighbouring Rwanda, which invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998, saying it was defending itself from attacks by Interahamwe militias involved in the genocide and hiding in Congo's forests.
An international committee said yesterday it was deeply concerned about "the numerous reports from multiple sources suggesting support by Rwandan troops for the actions taken by military insurgents".