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Reuters

Democratic Republic of Congo’s M23 rebel group has gained control of the airport in the eastern city of Goma, diplomatic and security sources told Reuters.
Corneille Nangaa, leader of the AFC rebel alliance that also includes M23, told Reuters that the airport was in their hands.
A spokesperson for Congo’s government was not immediately available for comment.
Dead bodies lay in the streets, gunfire rang out and hospitals were overwhelmed in east Congo’s largest city Goma where M23 rebels backed by Rwanda faced pockets of resistance on Tuesday from army and pro-government militias.
A day after the rebels marched into the lakeside city, protesters in the capital attacked a UN compound and embassies including those of Rwanda, France and the United States, expressing anger at what they said was foreign interference.
M23 fighters entered Goma on Monday in the worst escalation since 2012 of a three-decade conflict rooted in the long fallout from the Rwandan genocide and the struggle for control of Congo’s abundant mineral resources.
Goma is a major hub for people displaced by fighting elsewhere in eastern Congo and aid groups seeking to assist them. Now the fighting has sent thousands of people streaming out of the city – some had recently sought refuge there from M23’s offensive since the start of the year.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s government and the head of UN peacekeeping have said Rwandan troops were present in Goma, backing up their M23 allies. Rwanda has said it is defending itself against Congolese militias.
Goma residents and UN sources said dozens of troops had surrendered, but some soldiers and pro-government militiamen were holding out. People in several neighbourhoods reported small arms fire and some loud explosions.
“I have heard the crackle of gunfire from midnight until now … it is coming from near the airport,” an elderly woman in Goma’s northern Majengo neighbourhood, close to the airport, told Reuters by phone.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), told a briefing in Geneva colleagues had reported “heavy small arms fire and mortar fire across the city and the presence of many dead bodies in the streets”.
“We have reports of rapes committed by fighters, looting of property … and humanitarian health facilities being hit,” he added. Other international aid officials described hospitals overwhelmed with wounded being treated in hallways.
“The town is a powder keg,” Willy Ngumbi, a bishop in Goma, said. Explosives had hit a house where priests were staying and the maternity ward of a Catholic hospital on Monday, he said by phone. “The youth are armed and the fighting is now taking place in the town.”

Francois Moreillon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Congo, told Reuters a medicine warehouse had been looted, and he was concerned about a laboratory where dangerous germs including ebola were kept.
“Should it be hit in any way by shells which could affect the integrity of the structure, this could potentially allow germs to escape, representing a major public health issue well beyond the borders of the DRC,” he said.
In Kinshasa, 1,600km (1,000 miles) away from Goma, angry crowds burned tyres, chanted anti-Rwanda slogans and attacked embassies of several countries seen as favourable to Rwanda, leading the police to fire tear gas.
“What Rwanda is doing is with the complicity of France, the US and Belgium. The Congolese people are fed up. How many times do we have to die?” said protester Joseph Ngoy.
The Rwandan, French, US, Ugandan, Kenyan, Dutch and Belgian embassies were targeted. Videos posted online and verified by Reuters showed dozens of people looting the Kenyan embassy, while others showed looting had spread to other locations including a supermarket.

The UN and global powers fear the conflict could spiral into a regional war akin to those of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 that killed millions, mostly from hunger and disease.
Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance that includes the M23, has suggested the rebels’ aim is to replace President Félix Tshisekedi and his government in the capital.
UN peacekeepers have been caught up in the fighting. South Africa said three of its men were killed in crossfire between government troops and rebels and a fourth had succumbed to wounds from earlier fighting, bringing the number of its fatalities in the past week to 13.
M23 is the latest in a string of ethnic Tutsi-led, Rwandan-backed insurgencies that have brought tumult to Congo since the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda 30 years ago, when Hutu extremists killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus, and then were toppled by the Tutsi-led forces that still dominate Rwanda.
An estimated 1 million Hutus, some of them refugees and others genocide perpetrators, poured into Congo, and Rwanda says Hutu-led militias and their government allies pose a threat to Congolese Tutsis as well as Rwanda itself.
Congo rejects Rwanda’s complaints, saying Kigali has used its proxy militias to control and loot lucrative minerals such as coltan, which is used in smartphones.


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Rwandan-backed rebels enter DR Congo’s Goma in major escalation

Africa

Protesters clash with riot police forces in front of the French Embassy in Kinshasa. Photo: Reuters

People attack the Rwanda Embassy in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: AP

Protesters on a street in Kinshasa. Photo: Reuters

Intense combat nears eastern DR Congo, UN plans urgent meeting

Uruguayan soldiers of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). Photo: AFP

A victim of the fighting between M23 and the Congolese army receives treatment in a hospital in Goma on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Photo: dpa

The United Nations (UN) staff and their families outside the UN peacekeeping mission bureau before their relocation from Goma, on Saturday. Photo: Xinhua

South African peacekeepers killed in DRC as fighting rages

Smoke billows from an armored personnel carrier (APC) of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Soldiers from the 214th DP Battalion of the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) on a road between Bulongo and Beni, North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on December 17, 2024. Photo: AFP

Displaced people arrive by boat at the Nzulo port, near Goma, North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua

Uruguayan peacekeepers of MONUSCO in Nzulo, DRC, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Smoke billows from a UN armored personnel carrier on the main road linking Goma to the town of Sake, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: AFP

Congolese government soldiers handing over weapons to Uruguayan UN troops in Goma, DR Congo. Photo: Uruguayan Army/AFP

Congolese government troops outside Goma, DR Congo on Friday. Photo: AP

Rebels close in on eastern DR Congo’s largest city as army battles to halt advance

Congolese soldiers on top of a tank advancing towards Sake, 25km northwest of Goma. Photo: AFP

An attack helicopter of the Congolese forces. Photo: AFP

People fleeing the M23 rebels’ advance. Photo: AP 

News

World

The UN and global powers fear the conflict could spiral into a regional war akin to those of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 that killed millions


The UN and global powers fear the conflict could spiral into a regional war akin to those of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 that killed millions.
