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DR Congo/North Kivu: Fires and looting, rebel attacks causing panic among civilians

At least 30 homes were set on fire last night in Miriki, in North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in an attack by rebels of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda). According to local witnesses, the attack took place in the middle of the night, causing panic among residents that fled into the forest. Miriki, 120km north of the provincial capital Goma, was for long a stronghold of the FDLR that extorted tributes from residents in absence of a security force. The attack, aimed at robbing the residents of the small town, was the latest of a series carried out in the past weeks and around two months after the army launched the 'Kimya II' operation against the rebels. The army operation, backed by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR-Congo (MONUC), aims to end the presence in the east of the around 5,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels, deemed responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In an address to the nation on June 30, marking the nation's Independence Day, President Joseph Kabila defined the attacks in Kivu as acts of "terrorism", while the opposition claims they are a clear indication of the failure of the government bid to protect the civilians of the region. [BO]