The M23 rebels said the ceasefire would start Tuesday. The announcement came shortly after the U. The city of 2 million people is at the heart of a region home to trillions of dollars in mineral wealth and remains in rebel control. The M23 were reported to be gaining ground in other areas of eastern Congo and advancing on another provincial capital, Bukavu. But the rebels said Monday they did not intend to seize Bukavu, though they earlier expressed ambition to march on Congo's capital , Kinshasa, a thousand miles away.
There was no immediate comment from Congo's government. The rebels' announcement came ahead of a joint summit this week by the regional blocs for southern and eastern Africa, which have called for a ceasefire. Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies, or G7, urged parties in the conflict to return to negotiations. Congolese authorities have said they are open to talks to resolve the conflict, but that such a dialogue must be done within the context of previous peace agreements.
Rwanda and the rebels have accused the Congo government of defaulting on previous agreements. The M23 rebels are backed by some 4, troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.
The latest fighting forced hundreds of thousands of people who had been displaced by years of conflict to carry what remained of their belongings and flee again. Thousands poured into nearby Rwanda. The fighting in Congo has connections with a decades-long ethnic conflict. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the genocide of , Tutsis and others in Rwanda.
Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia group. On Monday, families desperate to identify their loved ones besieged morgues as body bags were loaded onto trucks for burials in Goma.
