Goma - A 25-ton arms cache has been found on the farm of the leader of a
band of Congolese army mutineers, the wanted war criminal Bosco
Ntaganda, a provincial governor's office said on Wednesday.
Hundreds
of army deserters led by the ex-general have clashed in recent days
with loyalist soldiers in the eastern DRC town of Kimbumba in a
conflict-torn region near the Rwandan border.
Ntaganda, nicknamed
the "Terminator", is wanted by the International Criminal Court for
alleged war crimes including recruiting child soldiers when he was part
of a militia in the early part of the last decade.
"More than 25
tons of weapons were recovered from the farm of Bosco Ntaganda in
Masisi," part of Nord-Kivu province where clashes took place between
April 29 and May 4, said province spokesperson Celestin Sibomana by
phone.
"There are heavy weapons: mortars, recoilless rifles and
small arms. Some weapons were presented to the governor [Julien Paluku]
while he was on tour in this part of Masisi," he said.
The Kivu
provinces have been unstable for most of the past 20 years, with a
myriad of armed groups preying on the civilian population, and regular
massive displacements of tens of thousands of people.
The
mutineers are former members of rebel group the National Congress for
the Defence of the People (CNDP) who had been integrated into the army
of the vast central African country under a 2009 peace deal.
Inhumane treatment
The rebel soldiers complained of inhumane treatment in the regular army.
Sibomana,
the spokesperson, said Ntaganda was now "in the Virunga National Park,
near Kibumba and near the border with Rwanda". As Rwanda has already
closed its border, the rebellious officers...were unable to return to
Rwanda."
The park, on the borders with Rwanda and Uganda, is
known for its mountain gorillas, apes that are highly endangered and
targeted by poachers.
The armed forces, the FARDC, last Saturday issued a five-day ultimatum to the mutineers to return to their ranks.
"If
they change sides, they will find the doors open to the FARDC. But
otherwise, the FARDC will take responsibility to hunt down the
mutineers," said the press secretary.
- AFP