Congolese soldiers have been conducting operations against rebels in the M23 movement
The UN says it has evidence that a rebellion in the Democratic Republic
of Congo is being fuelled by recruits and support from neighbouring
Rwanda.
An internal UN report seen by the BBC cited defecting soldiers, who
said they had been trained in Rwanda under the pretext of joining the
army, before being sent over the border to fight.
The conflict broke out in April after a mutiny by some Congolese army officers.
Some of the leaders are Tutsi officers who had been linked to Rwanda.
They were incorporated into the Congolese army in 2009 as part of a peace agreement.
The area has suffered years of fighting since the mid-1990s, when over a
million ethic Hutus fled across the border into DR Congo following the
Rwandan genocide.
There has so far been no response from the Rwandan government to the allegations.
Tens of thousands have fled the recent violence in the east of the country.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, says the UN spoke to 11 defectors there.
They had deserted their posts in the mountainous jungle area on the border between the DR Congo and Rwanda.
The UN report says the deserters were Rwandan nationals, recruited in
Rwanda under the pretext of joining the Rwandan military. They were
given weapons and training, and were then sent into DR Congo.
Some of the men were recruited as early as February 2012, the report says.
This is a potentially significant detail, our correspondent says: if
the claim is true, it would suggest Rwanda was preparing for conflict
before the mutiny by rebellious officers began in April.
One of the deserters, the report says, is a minor.
Earlier, there was fresh fighting between government forces and the army mutineers.
A spokesman for the mutineers, Vianney Kazarama, told AFP that the
Congolese army was attacking one of their strongholds in Nord-Kivu
province with heavy weapons.
The mutineers say they belong to the March 23rd Movement which
originated from an armed ethnic Tutsi group, the CNDP. They agreed to be
integrated into the Congolese army under the 2009 peace accord but
recently started to defect en masse, complaining of bad treatment.
Bosco Ntaganda, who is known as the "Terminator" and wanted by the ICC
for alleged war crimes, is accused of masterminding the mutiny. He
denies the claim.
Before the peace deal, the CNDP militia threatened to invade Goma, leading some 250,000 people to flee.
People in and around the town of Goma blame these troops for persistent
unrest - including looting and rape - since the formal end of DR
Congo's war in 2003
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