DR Congo soldier killed in gunfire on Rwandan border

• A DR Congo soldier killed in an exchange of fire with Rwandan soldiers.
• The incident happened at a frontier post in city of Goma.
• Rwanda says two of its soldiers were wounded.

A DR Congo soldier was killed in an exchange of fire with Rwandan soldiers at a border checkpoint on Friday in the country’s volatile eastern area, police said, while Rwanda reported two of its soldiers were wounded.

The incident, coinciding with mounting tension between the neighboring countries, happened at a frontier post in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, they said.

“A Congolese soldier rushed forward, opening fire in the direction of the Rwandan border,” a Congolese policeman who was present told AFP.

“A Rwandan soldier opened fire and he died on the spot. There was then an exchange of fire between us and the Rwandan security forces. Some of the civilians who were waiting to cross the border were wounded.”

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Rwanda’s army later confirmed the incident, stating that a Congolese soldier had crossed the border and begun shooting at troops and civilians with an AK-47 assault rifle, wounding two Rwandan soldiers.

“The Congolese soldier was shot dead 25 meters (yards) inside Rwandan territory,” the statement said.

In the early afternoon, the Congolese soldier’s body was repatriated to DR Congo, according to an AFP correspondent, where an applauding crowd received it.

Observers from a multinational organization called the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) briefly conferred with Congolese and Rwandan officials at the border.

Congolese police held back around a hundred demonstrators who tried to head to the border post, chanting slogans against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Fighting between Congolese troops and a rebel movement called the M23 has inflamed tensions between the two neighbors.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government accuses Rwanda of supporting, funding and arming the rebels, a charge that the government in Kigali repeatedly denies.

The M23 is a primarily Congolese Tutsi militia that is one of scores of armed groups in eastern DRC.

It leapt to global prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma, an important commercial hub of about a million people.

Read more: ‘We live in fear’: Shelled DR Congo village on rebel frontline

It was forced out shortly afterward in a joint offensive by UN troops and the Congolese army.

After lying dormant for years, the rebels resumed fighting last November after accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 agreement under which the army was to incorporate its fighters.

Clashes intensified in March, causing thousands of people to flee. On Monday, M23 fighters captured the strategic town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border.

Kinshasa and Kigali have had a tense relationship since Rwandan Hutus suspected of executing Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda massacre arrived in the DRC.