Forces backing President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo have reasserted control over key sites in the south-west of the country, four weeks after the Tutsi-led rebellion broke out.
Loyalist forces, with support from Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, have recaptured Matadi, capital of the Bas-Congo province, and restored calm to Kinshasa, which depends for many supplies on the region to the south-west.
The Zimbabwean information department said yesterday the pro-Kabila forces had retaken several other south-western sites, naming Kitona, Banana, Boma, the Inga hydroelectric power station, Songololo and Kasangula.
However, on Sunday night the rebels were still in control of Baza Ngungu and Icelo, said the statement, claiming that "hundreds of invading Ugandan and Rwandese forces were killed, wounded or captured."
Government forces are also putting pressure on rebel positions in the east, claiming to have surrounded the city of Kalemie, in Mr Kabila's home province of Katanga. The mainly ethnic Tutsi or Banyamulenge rebels, backed by Uganda and, according to Kinshasa, Rwanda, have denied that Kalemie is surrounded.
A correspondent in Kalemie said it was firmly in rebel hands, with rebel troops manning antiaircraft guns at the airport and patrolling in the town, which has a population of some 100,000.
Mr Kabila went to Namibia yesterday to meet his counterpart, President Sam Nujoma, briefing him on a planned offensive in the east, Namibian radio said.
The rebels' political leader, Mr Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, for his part reaffirmed that he was prepared to negotiate with the Kabila regime if foreign troops left the country.
The UN Security Council yesterday called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the start of a political dialogue to end the war in the DR Congo.
Angola's ruling MPLA party late yesterday expelled representatives of the former rebel UNITA movement from parliament and from the government of national unity because UNITA had failed to disarm.