A cautious calm has settled in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Uvira in South Kivu province, as residents begin to flee their homes after M23 rebels took over.
A United States-brokered peace deal seized earlier this week, which was signed and overseen with great fanfare by President Donald Trump a week ago, between Congolese and Rwandan leaders, Washington accused Rwanda of fueling the offensive on Friday.
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Regional authorities say at least 400 civilians, including women and children, have died in the violence in the towns of Bukavu and Uvira, both now under M23 control.
Al Jazeera is the only international broadcaster in Uvira, where correspondent Alain Uykani described Saturday the uneasy calm in the port city on the northern tip of Lake Tanganyika, which sits directly across from Burundi’s largest city, Bujumbura.
Uykani said government and allied militias known as “Vazalendo”, which were using the town as their headquarters, began fleeing before M23 fighters entered.
Residents who fled as Rwandan-backed groups advanced have begun to return to their homes, although most shops and businesses remain closed.
“People are coming out, they think fear is behind them,” Uykani said, although he noted that the situation was fragile with signs of heavy fighting across the city.
Bienvenue Mwatumabire, a resident of Uwira, told Al Jazeera he was at work when fighting broke out between rebels and government forces and heard gunfire from a neighboring village and decided to stop, but said “today we noticed that things are returning to normal.”
Baolez Benfet, another resident of Uvira, said the people of the town were not being harassed by the insurgents, but added, “We will see how the situation is in the coming days.”
An M23 spokesman defended the offensive, claiming the group had “liberated” Uvira from what he called a “terrorist force”. Rebels say they are protecting ethnic Tutsi communities in eastern DRC, a region where fighting has intensified since earlier this year.
The offensive, which began on December 2, has displaced more than 200,000 people in South Kivu province, according to local United Nations partners.
Rwanda is accused of supporting the rebels
South Kivu officials said Rwandan special forces and foreign mercenaries were committing “flagrant violations” in Uvira and violating the recent Washington Accords and earlier ceasefire agreements in Doha, Qatar.
At the UN Security Council on Friday, US Ambassador Mike Waltz accused Rwanda of leading the region to “increased instability and war,” warning that Washington would hold those who disrupt the peace accountable.
Waltz said Rwanda has maintained strategic control of M23 since the group’s re-emergence in 2021, with 5,000 to 7,000 Rwandan troops fighting alongside the rebels in Congo as of early December.
“Kigali is closely involved in the planning and execution of the war in eastern DRC,” Waltz told the UNSC, referring to the Rwandan capital.
Rwanda’s UN ambassador denied the allegations and accused the DRC of violating the ceasefire. Rwanda acknowledges having troops in eastern DRC but says they are there to protect security, particularly against Hutu militia groups that fled across the border to Congo after Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
The collapse has raised alarm in neighboring Burundi, which has deployed troops to the region. Burundi’s UN ambassador warned that “restraint has limits,” saying continued attacks would make it difficult to avoid direct conflict between the two countries.
More than 30,000 refugees have fled into Burundi in recent days.
The DRC’s foreign minister called on the UNSC to hold Rwanda accountable, saying “the punishment of impunity is too long”.
A report by the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project said Rwanda provided significant support to M23’s Uvira offensive, calling it the group’s most effective operation since March.
Al Jazeera’s UN correspondent Kristen Saloumi said UNSC members were briefed by experts who reported that civilians in the DRC were not benefiting from recent agreements negotiated between Kinshasa and Kigali.
More than 100 armed groups are fighting for control of the mineral-rich eastern DRC near the border with Rwanda. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than seven million people displaced across the region.
The M23 group is not a party to the Washington-brokered negotiations between the DRC and Rwanda, instead participating in separate talks with the Congolese government hosted by Qatar.