Congo Army Says It Captured Rwandan Rebel Spokesman Amid Attacks

(Bloomberg) -- A Rwandan rebel spokesman was captured by the army in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, sparking further fighting with the insurgents in which two Congolese soldiers were killed, the military said.

Ignace Nkaka, a member of the Congo-based Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, was seized late Sunday near the Ugandan border, a regional Congolese army official, Djike Kaiko, said by phone. He didn’t say if Nkaka will be immediately repatriated to Rwanda.

Congo, almost the size of western Europe, has struggled for two decades to defeat dozens of local and foreign militias in its east, which is home to deposits of tin, gold and coltan. Some of the FDLR’s leaders are linked to the perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in which about 800,000 people were killed.

Rwanda has said as many as three of its soldiers and four FDLR rebels were killed during a Dec. 9 attack that was the insurgents’ first incursion into Rwanda in more than two years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ignatius Ssuuna in Goma at issuuna@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn

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