Rwanda-backed M23 rebels claim to have taken over the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a battle with government forces and allies on Sunday.
Gunshots were heard in the city on Sunday as thousands of residents fled to the city center to escape the chaos. Most people in the city of over one million people also do not have power as the fighting destroyed electricity lines.
For over 30 years now, eastern Congo with vast mineral wealth has grappled with conflict largely due to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Rwanda-backed M23 is commanded by Congolese Tutsi officers who made news in 2012 as a successor group to previous Tutsi-led militias in eastern Congo. The group captured Goma that year but was driven out.
In 2021, the group launched another attack and took over some areas in North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda. The M23 has said that its mission is to protect minorities in Congo, including the Tutsi.
Reuters reports that M23 is the latest ethnic Tutsi-led, Rwandan-backed insurgency to fight Congo since the Rwandan genocide, when extremist Hutus killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus before being removed by the Tutsi-led forces led by Paul Kagame.
Rwanda has said that some of the perpetrators have sheltered in Congo since the genocide, adding they are a threat to Congolese Tutsis and Rwanda as a whole.
Reuters reported Wednesday that rebels were moving south towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province. “Isolated gunfire sounded through some outlying districts of the lakeside city of 2 million where Monday’s rebel storming left bodies lying in the streets, hospitals overwhelmed and U.N. peacekeepers sheltering in bases,” Reuters wrote.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces from Congo while the Congolese authorities have also indicated that its army will continue to fight the rebels.
