The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, on Thursday called for all sides to cease hostilities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Fighting between the DRC armed forces and the M23 armed group in the border region of South Kivu intensified over the last two weeks.
It's part of a struggle that has ebbed and flowed at least since M23 reemerged in 2021 and seized large chunks of territory, in a border region that has been plagued by conflict for decades.
Türk deplored the impact on civilians of the recent clashes in South Kivu, calling for concerted national and international efforts to de-escalate tensions.
"It is deeply troubling that despite the agreements reached as part of the ongoing peace processes, fighting continues unabated in eastern DRC - killing, injuring and displacing civilians and destroying livelihoods," Türk said.
There were intense clashes around Mulima village in Fizi on July 4 and 5, despite a framework peace deal agreed in Doha late last year and lauded by US President Donald Trump, which has done relatively little to halt the fighting.
"I urge the Congolese armed forces and the M23 to immediately step back from further violence and urgently act to de-escalate tensions," Türk said.
"I also call on both parties to take meaningful steps to protect civilians in Mulima and the wider Fizi and Mwenga plateau region. The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas has devastating consequences and must stop."
Türk's office also said in its statement that he "urged Rwanda to cease its support for M23 and to withdraw its troops from the DRC," while simultaneously urging the DRC to "scale up" their efforts to "demobilise, disarm and repatriate members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)," albeit without directly quoting the Austrian official.
The UN suspects both sides of being guilty of war crimes in the recent fighting in South Kivu.
South Kivu is a border region of DRC on the frontier to Rwanda, rich in gold, tin ore and coltan reserves, between two countries with an extremely tense recent shared history.
In the aftermath of the Rwandan civil war and particularly the genocide of the early 1990s, millions of ethnic Hutu, including some who were involved in the mass killings of Tutsis, fled to what was then known as Zaire. Rwanda and allied countries launched an offensive in 1996 as a result, and Kigali was also heavily involved in both the First and Second Congo Wars between 1997 and 2003.
They reached an uneasy peace in 2003, but tensions very much endured. Rwanda accuses the DRC of showing no desire to undermine or dismantle groups like the FDLR, while the DRC says the same of Rwanda and groups like M23, which is part of the wider Alliance Fleuve Congo.
The fighting coincides with widespread public protests in DRC and rising dissatisfaction with the government of Felix Tshisekedi. He is planning a set of constitutional reforms which an opposition alliance called C64 says is a thinly-veiled attempt to reset presidential term limits and extend his own time in power.
Finally, although it is well south of the centre of the outbreak in Ituri province near DRC's eastern border to Uganda, South Kivu is also one of the four provinces in DRC that have been affected by the ongoing Ebola outbreak. Health officials have warned that armed conflict in the east of the country could impede containment and response efforts.
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