Congo has stepped up army patrols in its volatile east after the former military chief of a once-powerful rebel group vanished from a camp for demobilised fighters in neighbouring Uganda and gunfire erupted outside an important border town. Julien Paluku, governor of Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, said Ugandan authorities no longer knew the whereabouts of Sultani Makenga, who was the military chief of the M23 rebellion.
"We were in contact with the Ugandan intelligence services who confirmed that, since Friday, ex-Colonel Makenga may have fled and the Ugandan services have not been able to locate him," Paluku told Reuters on Saturday. An official with M23's political wing declined to comment and referred questions about Makenga to the Ugandan authorities. A Ugandan army spokesman said he did not know whether Makenga had disappeared but would seek to confirm his whereabouts.
A Congolese customs official in Bunagana said gunfire had erupted overnight in the hills around the town, an important border crossing to Uganda that was once an M23 stronghold. Shooting continued sporadically into Saturday morning. "We didn't know where it was coming from. We woke up in panic," said the official. "We don't know what's happening, the military is telling us nothing."
The official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media, said there was increased military activity in Bunagana as well as a growing presence of Ugandan soldiers across the border in the town of Kisoro. Paluku said there was no confirmation Makenga had returned to Congo but added that there had been reports of unidentified troops in North Kivu's Sarambwe Nature Reserve, adjacent to the border.
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