In the midst of escalating tensions, DR Congo has deemed Rwanda‘s shooting down of one of its fighter jets a “act of war”
The DR Congo has refuted Rwanda’s assertion that it used “defensive measures” against a jet that had allegedly breached its airspace.
After months of fighting in eastern DR Congo, which has caused some 400,000 people to evacuate their homes, this is a significant escalation.
Rwanda is charged with supporting the M23 rebel organization by the DR Congo, the US, and UN experts.
Rwanda disputes this and holds the Congolese government responsible for the unrest in the region’s mineral-rich surroundings.
Rwanda twice launched soldiers into its much larger neighbor in the 1990s, setting off a massive conflict that involved at least nine nations and resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
Images posted on social media, which the BBC has not yet independently verified, show a Sukhoi-25 aircraft being shot at while it is flying at a low altitude between the border towns of Goma, DR Congo, and Gisenyi, Rwanda.
Other pictures from the landing at Goma airport show water being used to put out a fire on the plane’s right wing. The airliner sustained no “major material damage” according to the DR Congo.
The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo accused Rwanda in a statement of “sabotaging” the execution of a recent peace process that the opposing sides had agreed to in previous negotiations.
The Information Ministry went on to say that DR Congo “reserves the right to defend its national territory and will not be threatened”.
“The government considers this umpteenth attack by Rwanda as a deliberate action,” the ministry said.
The Congolese fighter jet has now entered Rwandan airspace three times, according to Rwanda, which urged its neighbor to “to stop this aggression”.
Another Congolese Sukhoi-25 aircraft made a quick stop at Rwanda’s Gisenyi airport in November of last year. The fighter jet “mistakenly landed” there, according to Kinshasa.
Could this cause a conflict?
In recent years, this is the closest the two nations have gone to a direct conflict.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the deaths of over 800,000 people, predominantly members of the Tutsi and moderate Hutu ethnic groups, has been blamed for the long-standing suspicions and tensions.
As a predominantly Tutsi rebel group led by Paul Kagame, who is now Rwanda’s president, won power, some of those involved escaped into what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Although Rwanda claimed to have sent troops into the DR Congo to put an end to Hutu militia attacks, both her forces and those of other countries that intervened were accused of plundering the region’s mineral resources.
Despite periodic escalations over the years, those tensions have not yet been addressed; nonetheless, in recent weeks, they have become substantially more intense.
President Kagame has disputed accusations that DR Congo supported the Tutsi-dominated M23, but he has also questioned why no one has brought up the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel group that includes some of the alleged genocide commanders.
In the past year, the M23 has seized control of a number of towns and villages in the North Kivu province.
With the aid of UN soldiers, the Congolese army is fighting the organization with the militaries of numerous east African nations.
Its leaders had earlier this month agreed to a ceasefire and to leave the territory they had seized, but on Tuesday morning, hours before the Congolese fighter plane was shot at, combat flared up once more.
