Fighters from the M23 rebel group seized the town of Kiwanja in eastern Congo on Saturday, residents and a local official said, effectively cutting North Kivu's capital Goma off from the upper half of the province.
Three Kiwanja residents told Reuters that droves of fighters had entered the town without significant resistance after a short spat of gunfire on Saturday morning.
A U.N. intervention brigade, which has been supporting government forces, said in a statement that four peacekeers were wounded in the fighting. The statement did not comment on the fate of the town.
"Attacks against U.N. peacekeepers may constitute war crimes," it said. "(The mission) calls on this rebel group to immediately cease all belligerence and warns that it stands ready to respond vigorously in the event of further aggression."
The Congolese army contingent protecting the town had departed the previous day, residents said. The army has conducted strategic retreats from populated areas to move fighting away from towns and protect civilians.
Kivu Security Tracker, which maps unrest in eastern Congo, said the army on Saturday retreated from positions at Rumangabo, their largest camp in the area, and that M23 had surrounded the local U.N. peacekeeper camp and the Virunga National Park.
The tracker is a joint project of the Congo Research Group, based at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, and Human Rights Watch and uses researchers based through eastern Congo, including in North Kivu.
Saidi Balikwisha Emil, a member of North Kivu's provincial parliament, said in a WhatsApp message: "The fall of Kiwanja and elsewhere is a national disgrace, especially for those of us who spend entire days on social networks casting aspersions on our army."
"Kiwanja (is) an important entity that opens the direct way to Goma," he added.
Neither General Sylvain Ekenge, the army's national spokesman, nor Colonel Ndjike Kaiko, the army's spokesman for North Kivu, immediately responded to calls and messages requesting comment.
Unrest in North Kivu has broken months of relative calm in eastern Congo after the resumption of clashes between the army and the M23 militants, whom Congo accuses its neighbour Rwanda of backing and Rwanda denies.
Army forces have clashed with rebel fighters several times since fighting resumed on Oct. 20, killing at least four civilians and forcing more than 23,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations. Both groups have accused the other of initiating the violence.
When it formed in 2012, M23 was the newest in a series of ethnic Tutsi-led insurgencies to rise up against Congolese forces.
(Reporting by Djaffar Al Katanty; Additional reporting by Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Cooper Inveen; Editing by Louise Heavens and Alison Williams)
