(30 Nov 2012)
1. Various of column of M23 rebels marching along road, some carrying heavy weapons
2. Mid of group of rebels standing around, conferring
3. Wide of rebels marching through town
4. Mid of rebels marching through town, with people selling food on side of road
STORYLINE:
Reporters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) saw a two-kilometre (1.2-mile) long column of M23 soldiers moving out of the town of Sake on Friday.
The troop movement is a positive sign, after the rebels - who are believed to be backed by Rwanda - postponed indefinitely their departure from the key eastern city of Goma, defying for a second time an ultimatum set by neighbouring nations.
The delay raises the possibility that the M23 rebels don't intend to leave the city they seized last week - giving credence to a United Nations report which argues that neighbouring Rwanda is using the rebels as a proxy to annex territory in mineral-rich eastern DRC.
On Friday, an AP reporter saw troops moving from the two areas that M23 captured after they took Goma.
The accord had called for the thousands of fighters to retreat from the furthest point first - Masisi.
From there, they would go to Sake, some 27 kilometres (18 miles) west of Goma, before withdrawing completely from Goma to a position 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the provincial capital.
The column of soldiers seen by AP leaving Sake on Friday was at least a thousand-deep.
They carried their weapons, including mortar launchers on their heads and rocket-propelled grenades on their backs.
They walked in an orderly fashion, all in silence.
The people of Sake stood to the side watching, not clapping or shouting.
The M23 rebels are widely believed to be supported by Rwanda - which, according to the UN report, has provided them with battalions of soldiers, arms and financing.
The DRC, an enormous, sprawling Central African nation, has twice been at war with its much smaller but more affluent and better organised neighbour.
The eight-month-old M23 rebellion is led by fighters from a now-defunct rebel group, who agreed to lay down their arms on March 23, 2009, in return for being allowed to join the ranks of the Congolese army.
M23 takes its name from the date of that accord, and the rebellion began in April, when hundreds of soldiers defected from the military, saying that the terms of the accord had not been respected.
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