Five Killed in Rwandan and DR Congo Border Clashes

Five Congolese soldiers were killed in clashes with Rwandan troops on Wednesday, military and government officials said, as both sides traded blame for sparking the worst violence in months.

Machine gunfire broke out at dawn along the border after what the Congolese army said was the abduction of one of their soldiers by Rwandan troops who had crossed the border into the restive province of North Kivu.

The skirmishes later escalated, with Congolese military officials saying the sides had traded heavy weapons fire while locals reported "mortars and even rockets" being used through the afternoon. 

A DR Congo government spokesman confirmed the abducted corporal had been killed and blamed Rwandan troops.

But Kigali hit back, accusing Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers of crossing the border into its territory and opening fire on Rwandan soldiers in bloody battles that left four more dead.

"On Wednesday ... a section of the DRC army crossed the border to Rwanda where they opened fired on a Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) patrol," the government said in a statement.

"The attacks in the morning were followed by a second attempt: a deployment of two FARDC (Congolese) platoons to Rwanda, which led to a new firefight that killed four FARDC soldiers."

Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said the country stood "ready to act to protect its citizens" against further attacks. 

Western officials sought to play down the escalating rhetoric between the two countries, which have been locked in a decades-long conflict.

"We are in contact with both governments and are trying to understand exactly what happened... This is to reduce the tension," a senior United Nations official told Agence France Presse.

The violence -- the most severe to break out between the two neighbors since the end of last October -- could undermine international efforts to bring stability to Congo's mineral-rich but lawless east after years of bloody conflict.

Kigali and Kinshasa have long been at odds, with Rwanda repeatedly accused by the United Nations and its neighbor of backing the M23 rebels in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rwanda last year accused the Congolese army of firing rockets and mortar shells on its territory and massed troops along its border in response.

Rwanda fought against the central government in Kinshasa in Congo's two wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003 and has been involved in several attempts to destabilize the country, backing uprisings by Tutsi-dominated militias. 

But since the defeat in November of a Kigali-backed rebellion led by the M23 group, the border has remained relatively calm. 

A Western military source confirmed on Wednesday that "a Rwandan company came on Congolese soil" but said there were no concerns that the clashes could snowball into broader violence because no troops have been moved and the tension is "localized."

Last year the Great Lakes regional body set up the Joint Verification Mechanism (JVM) -- a multinational team of military officers -- to defuse the M23 crisis.

A source at the JVM said a monitoring mission sent to assess the fighting at Rwanda's request was forced to turn back to Goma "due to tension in the area" and would remain there until the situation had calmed down.