119 troops die as Congo rebels lose town

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Gbadolite, Congo - Congolese rebels said the government recaptured a small northern town on Sunday but 119 soldiers of President Laurent Kabila died in the fighting. Jean Pierre Bemba, who leads the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), said his forces also captured 135 government troops in the battle at Nkonya, close to the larger town of Makanza on the Congo river. Two MLC fighters were killed. "Despite this new aggression, the MLC troops defended themselves valiantly, and inflicted heavy losses on government forces," Bemba said in a statement released at his headquarters in the town of Gbadolite. There was no independent confirmation of the report. Backed by the Ugandan army, Bemba's group controls a string of towns in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Two other rebel factions, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, have captured a vast swathe of territory in the east of the former Zaire since taking up arms 16 months ago.

Kabila's forces are supported by troops from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.

All sides signed up to a ceasefire in the Zambian capital Lusaka in August, but there have been repeated reports of truce violations.

In the statement, Bemba said Kabila's troops had violated the agreement 50 times since mid-October.

He said over the last three days, government troops had repeatedly attempted to break through rebel lines close to the town of Basankusu, 800km northeast of the capital Kinshasa.

The statement said Kabila had equipped 10 civilian boats with artillery pieces and was bombarding civilians along the Congo river and its tributaries, as well as carrying out aerial bombing raids around Basankusu.

"Hundreds of bodies are floating along the banks of the river," the statement said.

There was no independent confirmation of any of the fighting. - Reuters