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Congolese rebel group M23 appears to be regrouping just two months after the Tutsi-led insurgency was defeated by Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers, the top UN official in the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Monday.
Martin Kobler told the UN Security Council there were “credible reports of emerging M23 activities in Ituri in north-eastern Congo” and called on the Congolese government to speed up the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-M23 fighters, who ended their 20-month revolt in November 2013.

“At the same time, I call upon the governments of Uganda and Rwanda to do everything possible to prevent M23 elements from sheltering or training troops on their territory. We should tolerate no military re-emergence of the M23,” he said.

Kobler told reporters after briefing the council that “there might be a danger of renewed military infiltration of the country” by M23.
UN experts – who monitor violations of U.N. sanctions on Congo – have long accused neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda of backing M23, claims that both governments have rejected.

In a report to the Security Council’s Congo sanctions committee in December, the experts said they had credible information that blacklisted M23 leaders were moving freely in Uganda and the group was still recruiting fighters in Rwanda.

M23 is one of dozens of rebel groups in eastern Congo. Millions of people have died from violence, disease and hunger since the 1990s as armed groups fought for control of the area’s deposits of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and uranium.

Mary Robinson, the UN special envoy to the Great Lakes who is charged with implementing a regional peace deal, told the 15-member Security Council that Congo and neighbouring countries needed to take some confidence-building steps.

These steps included showing “none is harbouring individuals responsible for grave human rights violations, none is giving any kind of support or assistance to armed groups, none is interfering in the affairs of a neighbouring country.”

“There is worrying evidence that these commitments are not yet being fully implemented by Rwanda and Uganda,” she said.
Rwanda’s deputy UN ambassador, Olivier Nduhungirehe, said there was no evidence that Rwanda supported M23. He said Rwanda had interned more than 600 M23 fighters who had fled across its border in March last year and that Kigali had repeatedly asked the United Nations to take charge of them.

Uganda’s UN mission in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rwanda has repeatedly intervened in Congo, saying it had to hunt down the Hutu militia who fled after the Rwandan genocide. Rwanda and Congo have fought two wars in the past two decades in eastern Congo.

Rwanda has accused Congolese troops of collaborating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which includes Hutus who fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide of 800 000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus. Kinshasa denies the claim. Kobler told the Security Council that since the defeat of M23, Congolese troops and U.N. peacekeepers had turned their attention to tackling the FDLR. He said first operations against the group had cleared some positions.

“Operations can only be successful if done jointly with the Congolese Army. I do encourage the Congolese Forces to do more and to intensify the joint planning and execution of operations against the FDLR,” Kobler said.

He also said military action could be expected soon against the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group that “continues to spread terror and horror” in the Ituri region of Congo’s north-eastern Orientale province.

Kobler cited to the Security Council an example of the ADF’s brutality toward civilians.
“On 13 December, in an ADF-controlled area, 21 bodies, including the bodies of eight babies, very young children and pregnant women, were found dead, mutilated and some beheaded,” he said. “Three of the children were reportedly. —Reuters.