East Congo rebels abduct at least 130 hospital patients, UN says

GENEVA — 

M23 rebels launching an offensive in east Congo abducted at least 130 sick and wounded men from two hospitals in the city of Goma last week, the United Nations said Monday.

M23 fighters raided CBCA Ndosho Hospital and Heal Africa Hospital during the night of Feb. 28, taking 116 and 15 patients respectively, U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.

The abducted men were suspected of being Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers or members of a pro-government militia known as Wazalendo.

"It is deeply distressing that M23 is snatching patients from hospital beds in coordinated raids and holding them incommunicado in undisclosed locations," Shamdasani said, calling for their immediate release.

M23 spokespersons Willy Ngoma and Lawrence Kanyuka Kingston did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Tutsi-led M23 marched into the city of Goma at the end of January and have since made an unprecedented advance into east Congo, seizing territory and gaining access to valuable minerals.

Their ongoing advance, which started in late December, is already the gravest escalation a long-running conflict rooted in the spill over into Congo of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo's vast mineral resources.

Congo, U.N. experts and Western powers accuse Rwanda of backing the group.

Rwanda denies this and says it is defending itself against ethnic Hutu-led militias bent on slaughtering Tutsis in Congo and threatening Rwanda.

About 7,000 people have been killed in east Congo since January and almost half a million people were left without shelter after 90 displacement camps were destroyed in the fighting, according to the government.

International sanctions, renewed investigations by the International Criminal Court and Africa-led peace negotiations have failed to halt the advance by the rebels, who have captured east Congo's two major cities, Goma and Bukavu.