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DRC approaching a breaking point

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, July 15 (UPI) -- Congolese rebels said they want to sit down at the negotiating table with President Joseph Kabila amid reports of renewed fighting in eastern DRC.

Aid groups working in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo sounded the alarm last week when elements of the Allied Democratic Forces attacked a town in the east of the country.

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ADF is a Uganda rebel movement based in eastern DRC. The area was seized briefly last year by the March 23 Movement but recaptured with the help of U.N. peacekeepers, who have a mandate to use force against area rebels.

M23 rebel spokesman Amani Kabashi told the BBC it was time to sit down at the negotiating table with Kabila. He said they've been waiting six months to talk without any reciprocal efforts from the government in Kinshasa.

The BBC reports the Rwandan government is suspected of supporting Congolese rebel groups. Rwandan President Paul Kagame told the broadcaster in May the allegations of support for DRC rebels like M23 were misguided. He said many of the problems in DRC require political, not military, solutions.

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Conflict in the region is pitted along Tutsi and Hutu ethnic divisions, the same divisions that sparked the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s.

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