Dozens reportedly injured after explosions rock a meeting of M23 rebel group leaders in Congo

BUKAVU, Congo (AP) — Dozens of people were reportedly injured Thursday after two explosions hit a meeting of M23 rebel group leaders and residents in the captured city of Bukavu in eastern Congo.

Video and photos shared on social media on Thursday showed a crowd fleeing the meeting in Bukavu in panic and bloodied bodies on the ground.

Leaders of the M23 rebel group were meeting residents when the explosions occurred in the central part of Bukavu. Among the rebel leaders present was Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), which includes the M23.

The leaders, including Nangaa, were leaving the podium when two blasts rocked the scene, according to a journalist present at the meeting.

Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have swept through the region seizing key cities and killing some 3,000 people. In a lightning three-week offensive, the M23 took control of eastern Congo’s main city Goma and seized the second largest city, Bukavu.

The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

Rwanda has accused Congo of enlisting ethnic Hutu fighters responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

M23 says it’s fighting to protect Tutsis and Congolese of Rwandan origin from discrimination and wants to transform Congo from a failed state to a modern one. Analysts have called those pretexts for Rwanda’s involvement.