Emmy Allio
29 November 2001
The Chief of Staff of a Congolese rebel force has been killed by the Mai Mai fighters in Butembo.
At least 50 people have died in the clashes.
Mbuki, who worked with rebel chief Mbusa Nyamwisi, was reported killed along with 11 other soldiers in fighting in Mbigi village between Butembo and Kanyabayonga towns.
Fighting was reported between Mbusa's soldiers and the Mai Mai militia who said they want to eject Mbusa from Butembo and Beni.
In Bunia, tension was high yesterday with reports of five RCD-Kisangani rebel soldiers killed in Nyakunde by suspected warriors from the Ngiti ethnic group.
Sources said several huts in Nyakunde, about 15km south of Bunia town, were burnt down on Monday and hundreds of civilians were fleeing to Bunia town in the renewed ethnic clashes between the Hema/Gegere and Lendu/Ngiti.
Sources said there was more panic in Bunia as Jean Pierre Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) troops assembled at Bunia airport, ready to fly to Gbadolite.
Bemba is removing his troops from the troubled Ituri region after the collapse of the merger between MLC and RCD-Kisangani whose leader Prof. Ernest Wamba dia Wamba was on November 22, toppled by Mbusa Nyamwisi.
"I am pulling out my troops from Bunia before they are caught up in this useless power struggle," Bemba told The New Vision yesterday.
The former RCD rebel envoy to Kampala and now leader of CNRD, a Congolese political pressure group, Gaston Kangele, yesterday condemned the fighting and blamed it on "greed by the Congolese rebel leaders."
"Instead of concentrating on the peace process, Mbusa and John Tibasima are fighting to control customs posts and minefields to continue plundering the country," he said.
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