\n<\/p>\n
The armed group\u2019s fighters fighters remained visible in the town on Wednesday, saying conditions for withdrawal not met.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The DRC government has said the M23 armed group\u2019s unfulfilled pledge to withdraw from the key town of Uvira is a \u201cdistraction\u201d, as the group said its conditions for a pullout were yet to be met.<\/p>\n Patrick Muyaya, a spokesperson for the Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s government, said Wednesday that the group\u2019s statement it would withdraw from the town in South Kivu province, in line with a request from US mediators, was a \u201cnon-event, a diversion, a distraction\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cThe son, M23, offers itself in sacrifice before the US mediator to protect the father, Rwanda,\u201d Muyaya said, referring to Kigali\u2019s support for the group.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intention is to distract the American mediation team, which is preparing to take measures against Rwanda,\u201d Muyaya told Reuters.<\/p>\n The Rwanda-backed militia seized the strategic town last week, imperilling a tenuous US-brokered peace agreement between Kinshasa and Kigali signed amid fanfare just days earlier and raising fears of a widening conflict.<\/p>\n The seizure of the town led \u200b\u200bUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio to accuse Rwanda, which denies backing M23 rebels, of a \u201cclear violation\u201d of the deal, promising that Washington would \u201ctake action to ensure promises made to the president are kept\u201d.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, the leader of the Alliance Fleuve Congo\u00a0rebel coalition, which includes the M23 group, said their fighters would withdraw from the strategic town near the border with Burundi, in accordance with the request from US mediators.<\/p>\n Corneille Nangaa, leader of the coalition, described the withdrawal as a \u201cunilateral trust-building measure in order to give the \u2026 peace process the maximum chance to succeed\u201d.<\/p>\n But despite that pledge, M23 fighters remained visible in the town on Wednesday, stationed near government offices and along major roads, saying there were conditions for any withdrawal.<\/p>\n M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma told Reuters that the group was \u201cready to leave, but our conditions have to be reviewed\u201d.<\/p>\n The group said a neutral force must be deployed to maintain security in the town if the group were to pull out, to avoid a repeat of previous withdrawals that it says have led to renewed violence.<\/p>\n Jean Jacques Purusi, governor of South Kivu province where Uvira is located, told Reuters that the M23 fighters \u201cdo not want to leave\u201d.<\/p>\n Reporting from Uvira, Al Jazeera\u2019s Alain Uaykani that, despite the continued presence of M23 fighters, a fragile sense of normality was returning to the town after days of fighting.<\/p>\n Markets were reopening, and traffic was returning to the streets, he said \u2013 although daily life remained overshadowed by the ongoing political instability.<\/p>\n Resident Feza Mariam said the priority for locals was an end to the fighting.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know anything about the political process that they\u2019re talking about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing we need is peace. Anyone who is able to provide us with peace is welcome here.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow resident Eliza Mapendo said locals had suffered \u201ca lot\u201d, but that calm had been restored sufficiently for daily life to begin to resume.<\/p>\n \u201cFor now, we feel secure and we\u2019re working freely in this market,\u201d she said, adding that the sense of normality was fragile.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could attack without any reason and take your business away.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, DRC\u2019s army spokesperson, Sylvain Ekenge, told Reuters that fighting was continuing daily across the conflict-hit east, where M23 made a rapid advance this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t a day without fighting in North Kivu and South Kivu,\u201d Ekenge said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The armed group\u2019s fighters fighters remained visible in the town on Wednesday, saying conditions for withdrawal not met. The DRC government has said the M23 armed group\u2019s unfulfilled pledge to withdraw from the key town of Uvira is a \u201cdistraction\u201d, as the group said its conditions for a pullout were yet to be met. Patrick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
M23 \u2018do not want to leave\u2019<\/h2>\n
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