Streets were empty, shops shuttered and soldiers fled a key eastern DR Congo city Wednesday a day after the Rwanda-backed M23 militia entered the outskirts, in a move Burundi called a “middle finger” to the United States after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.

M23 fighters entered the strategic city of Uvira at the gateway to Burundi late Tuesday, security and military sources said, plunging the city of several hundred thousand residents into uncertainty over who was in charge.

It comes less than a year after the anti-government group seized Goma and Bukavu, two provincial capitals in the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for around three decades.

“The residents are locked inside their homes,” one of them told AFP. “Everyone is staying home,” another added.

“We don’t understand anything, we can only wait for new authorities to take over. We can’t remain without an army or police,” a third resident said. All spoke by telephone and asked to remain anonymous.

The latest offensive — launched on December 1 against the Congolese army backed by Burundian forces and allied armed groups — has further shaken hopes that an agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump will succeed in halting the conflict.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame inked the deal in Washington last Thursday.

“Signing an agreement and not implementing it is a humiliation for everyone, and first and foremost for President Trump,” Burundian Foreign Minister Edouard Bizimana told AFP over the phone.

“It’s truly a slap in the face to the United States, a middle finger,” he said, adding that sanctions against Rwanda were “necessary”.

Rwanda accused the DRC and Burundi of deliberately violating the peace agreement, in a statement Wednesday. A day earlier, the United States and European powers urged the M23 to “immediately halt” its offensive and for Rwanda to pull its troops out of the eastern DRC.

– Border closed –

Burundi, which neighbours both the DRC and Rwanda, views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat.

Uvira sits across Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian economic capital Bujumbura, with only around 20 kilometres (12 miles) between the two cities.

Burundi’s main border posts with the DRC were closed on Tuesday afternoon and are now considered “military zones”, military and police sources told AFP.

The M23, for its part, has closed the border on the Congolese side, according to local and military sources, though it is not yet clear whether the armed group has taken control of Uvira.

Several Congolese army soldiers and members of pro-Kinshasa militia were still seen in the area of Uvira, military sources and witnesses said.

A few stray shots were reported.

The city nestled between mountains and Lake Tanganyika had already largely emptied on Tuesday as soldiers, police and administrative personnel fled the M23’s advance.

Residents speaking to AFP by telephone had pointed to a “every man for himself” mentality and growing panic.

Congolese soldiers, some of whom had abandoned their weapons and uniforms, fled, looting shops and a pharmacy as they went, according to witnesses and military sources.

– Threatened –

Several residents told AFP by telephone in the early afternoon Wednesday that they had seen M23 fighters in Uvira’s northern districts.

“I can confirm the presence of M23 in the city,” a representative of civil society told AFP. “I’ve just the M23 with my own eyes pass by my house.”

More than 40,000 Congolese have fled the fighting and arrived in Burundi in the space of a week, the Burundian foreign minister told AFP.

According to an initial estimate by the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within South Kivu province since December 2.

Meanwhile thousands of others have crossed the border into neighbouring countries, especially Burundi but also Rwanda.

The latest advance on Uvira marks a new blow for the DRC government.

According to several European diplomatic sources, Kinshasa fears the M23 pushing on towards the copper- and cobalt-rich Katanga province in the southeastern DRC, the vast country’s mining hub which the state relies on to fill its coffers thanks to taxes imposed on mining companies.

The peace agreement — which Trump called a “miracle” deal — includes an economic portion intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as the United States seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.

The M23 is supported by up to 7,000 Rwandan troops in eastern DRC, according to UN experts.

Burundi, which has thorny relations with Rwanda, deployed about 10,000 soldiers to the eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.

While denying offering the M23 military support, Rwanda argues that it faces an existential threat from the presence in the eastern DRC of ethnic Hutu militants with links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis.