Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have advanced into the centre of Bukavu, the second-largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on 16 February, meeting little resistance from government troops, witnesses and the armed group said. Bukavu, a city of about 1.3 million people, lies 63 miles south of the region’s largest city, Goma, which had been taken by the rebels last month. M23 is the latest in a string of ethnic Tutsi-led insurgent groups that have operated in the mineral-rich eastern DRC since a 2003 deal that was meant to end wars that had killed 6 million people, mostly from hunger and disease. The Congolese government and several UN reports say Rwanda is using the group as a means to extract and then export valuable minerals for use in products such as mobile phones
