(Reuters) -Nine South African soldiers have been killed in eastern Congo’s conflict zone, the South African defence department said on Saturday, as Congolese troops and peacekeepers battled to stop an advance by Rwanda-backed rebels on the city of Goma.
Democratic Republic of Congo and its allies earlier repelled an overnight advance on the provincial capital of over 1 million people, two army sources said. The sound of nearby heavy bombardment rocked the city in the early hours.
The three-year M23 insurgency in Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich east has intensified in January with rebels seizing control of more territory than ever before, prompting the U.N. to warn of the risk of a broader regional war.
As of Friday, two days of fierce fighting had killed two Southern Africans deployed with the U.N. peacekeeping mission and seven others in the Southern African regional bloc’s force in Congo, the South African National…
