The Democratic Republic of Congo’s army has denied the presence of fighters from Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group in the country, in response to claims by a rebel group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The army has been struggling to contain the M23 rebel group that has in recent months captured swathes of territory in the eastern part of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reports have suggested the presence of Russian mercenaries in North Kivu province on government\u2019s invitation to help deal with the rebel group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is true, Wagner Group is here. We have evidence that we will show in due time,\u201d M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma told the BBC on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that they had fought a joint team of the Congolese army and the mercenaries last week in Tongo and Nyamilima fronts in Rutshuru area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the army spokesperson Major General Sylvain Ekenge has denied the claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Wagner group is not operating in DR Congo,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian mercenaries have a presence in DR Congo\u2019s northern neighbour, Central African Republic, where in 2021 they played a role in fighting rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year in October, Congolese President F\u00e9lix Tshisekedi told a meeting in London that he would not bring in Russian mercenaries to deal with the rebel activity in his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s fashionable now\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.[but] no, we don\u2019t need to use mercenaries,” he was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unrest in eastern DR Congo has displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BBC News Africa<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Democratic Republic of Congo’s army has denied the presence of fighters from Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group in the country, in response to claims by a rebel group. The army has been struggling to contain the M23 rebel group that has in recent months captured swathes of territory in the eastern part of the country. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":34535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[3875,820],"class_list":["post-34534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-2","tag-m23"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34536,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34534\/revisions\/34536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}