DR Congo rebels start slow pullout of frontline positions

Rebel fighters in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo said Thursday they were moving out of frontline positions in the resource-rich region to comply with orders to withdraw from the key city of Goma. Fighters from the M23 rebels were seen trucking equipment from frontline areas they'd seized beyond the lakeside city of Goma, although there was little sign of a major troop pullout on Thursday. However, M23 spokesman Amani Kabasha told AFP they would hand over the small but strategic frontline town of Sake on Friday to United Nations peackeepers and regional officials, with the withdrawal from Goma following later. Control of Goma -- some 30 kilometres (19 miles) to the east of Sake -- would be passed from the M23 army mutineers to the UN later the same day or "maybe the day after", he said. "It is a process," he added. Ugandan army chief Aronda Nyakairima, who helped broker a deal with the M23 to leave Goma, said the reports he had indicated that the rebels "are withdrawing and will withdraw." The rebels have missed earlier deadlines to withdraw from Goma and its surroundings after last week's lightning push, but they claim now to be committed to the staggered pullout. Residents have reported seeing dozens of trucks carrying food and ammunition trundling through the lush green and rolling hills on the shores of Lake Kivu towards Goma, pulling back past the wreckage of last week's fighting. But numbers of actual troops so far have been low, according to Goma's residents working on the road west out of the city, on which rebels would be expected to travel. "Since yesterday I have seen some soldiers returning -- around 50 -- some in vehicles and some on motorbikes," said local official Marcel Kadede, sitting in his wooden shack where a photograph of President Joseph Kabila proudly hung. An AFP reporter saw M23 fighters seen still 10 kilometres west beyond Sake on Thursday afternoon. M23 commander Sultani Makenga reportedly commands some 1,500 fighters, according to a Western military source. He was hit with UN and United States sanctions last month over alleged killings, rapes and abductions committed by his men. But the rebels are understood to have beefed up their strength with heavy artillery seized when the Congolese army fled. Makenga has said he will withdraw just 20 kilometres from the city, the main settlement in the flashpoint Kivu region and which abuts both Rwanda and Uganda. Decades of civil war between multiple militia forces -- as well as meddling by regional armies -- have ravaged the region, which holds vast mineral wealth, including copper, diamonds, gold and the key mobile phone component coltan. UN experts have previously accused Rwanda and Uganda -- who played active roles in back-to-back conflicts in DR Congo from 1996 to 2003 -- of supporting the M23, a charge both countries deny. A French-drafted resolution at the UN Security Council on Wednesday said it would consider sanctions against more M23 rebel leaders and those "providing external support," though it did not name any specific country. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on the region's leaders to withdraw backing for the rebels. But civilians, many of whom have had to flee repeated rounds of fighting over several years, are suffering. Aid agencies are struggling to cope with newly displaced, some 285,000 people having abandoned their homes since the rebels began their uprising in April. "The humanitarian impact of this conflict in the eastern part of the country is devastating," Clinton said. Rights groups and UN officials have accused the rebels of killing, raping and abducting civilians, and the government has ruled out any peace talks until the M23 quit Goma. But residents in Goma appeared more concerned at what would happen when the Congolese army returned. "They are an undisciplined army, they have done nothing to protect us," said Dunia, an electrician. The M23 was founded by former fighters in an ethnic-Tutsi rebel group whose members were integrated into the regular army under a 2009 peace deal which they claim was never fully implemented.