The rebels took up Tuesday airport in the largest city in the East Congo, Goma, potentially cutting the main route to help reach hundreds of thousands of displaced people, after capturing the city in an offensive that has Leaving corpses in the streets.
M23 fighters walked in Goma, the capital of the northern Kivu province on Monday. It was the worst climbing since 2012 of a conflict of three decades anchored in the long repercussions of the Rwandan genocide and the fight for the control of the abundant mineral resources of the Congo.
The United Nations heard that the rebels controlled the airport and are inside Goma, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, during a briefing, describing the situation as “stretched and fluid”.
“There are real risks of rupture of the law and order in the city, given the proliferation of weapons,” he warned, adding that the soldiers of peace and the United Nations staff had been forced to take shelter in their bases.
In the Congolese capital Kinshasa, 1,600 kilometers west of Goma, demonstrators attacked a United Nations and Embassies complex, including those of Rwanda, France and the United States, expressing the anger of this that they said they are a foreign interference. The looters ransacked the Kenyan embassy.
Goma is a major hub for people displaced by fighting elsewhere in eastern Congo and aid groups seeking to help them. The fighting sent thousands of people in difficulty from the city, some of whom had recently sought to refuge from the M23 offensive since the start of the year.
Just on the other side of the border in Rwanda, the trucks discharged a large number of people fleeing Goma with their children and packets of possession wrapped in pieces of fabric.
The government of the Congo and the head of the United Nations peacekeeping said that Rwandan troops were present in Goma, supporting their M23 allies. Rwanda said it defended itself against the threat of Congolese militias, without directly saying if its troops crossed the border.
Dozens of troops surrender
The residents of Goma and the United Nations sources said that dozens of troops had surrendered, but some pro-government soldiers and militiamen stood. People from several neighborhoods reported light weapons and noisy explosions on Tuesday morning.
“I have heard the crackling of midnight shots until now … It comes from near the airport,” an elderly woman told Reuters in the northern district of Goma Majengo, near the Airport, in Reuters.
The M23 rebels claim to have captured Goma, the largest city in the East Congo, while the United Nations described a “mass panic” among its two million people.
A large part of the fighting was concentrated around the airport and Tuesday afternoon, several diplomatic and security sources said that the M23 rebels had taken control of it, putting them in charge of a vital link with the outside world.
“It is by the airport that the United Nations, the humanitarian groups, the soldiers of peace and even the Congolese army obtained supplies,” said Congo researcher, Christoph Vogel, adding that there had no viable access by road or by boat on Lake Kivu.
Rape, looting reports
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office, told a briefing in Geneva that colleagues had reported “heavy shots of light weapons and mortar fire across the city and the presence of many corpses in the streets “.
“We have rape reports committed by combatants, looting of goods … and humanitarian health establishments are affected,” he said. Other international aid managers have described exceeded hospitals, the wounded being treated in the corridors.
The four main hospitals in the city treated at least 760 people injured by fighting since Sunday, said on Sunday and humanitarian sources, warning that they could not estimate a specific number of deaths, because many people died outside the Hospitals.
François Morellon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Congo, told Reuters that a medical warehouse had been looted and that he was concerned about a laboratory where dangerous germs, including Ebola, were preserved.
“If it is struck in any way by shells that could affect the integrity of the structure, this could potentially allow germs to escape, representing a major public health problem far beyond the borders” Congo, he said.
In Kinshasa, angry crowds have chanted anti-Rwanda slogans and attacked the embassies of several countries considered favorable in Rwanda, set fire to tires and buildings. The police pulled tear gas to disperse them.
“What Rwanda does is with the complicity of France, the United States and Belgium. The Congolese have enough. How many times should we die?” Demoter Joseph Ngoy said.
Rwandan, French, United States, Ugandaie, Kenyan, Dutch and Belgian embassies were targeted. Videos published online and verified by Reuters have shown that dozens of people looting the Kenyan Embassy, while others have shown that looting has spread to other places, including a supermarket.
Fear of a wider conflict
The M23 is the last of a series of ethnic insurrections and origin to support the Rwandans who have brought Tumult to the Congo since the consequences of the genocide in Rwanda 30 years ago, when the Hutu extremists killed Tutsis and Moderate Hutus, then were overturned by the Hutu extremists killed Tutsis and moderate Hutu, then were overthrown by Hutu’s extremists killed Tutsis and Moderate Hutu, then were filled by Hutu extremists Killed of the Moderate Tutsis and Hutus, then were filled by Hutu’s extremists killed Tutsis and Moderate Hutus, then were overthrown by the Hutu of the forces led by Tuts who still govern Rwanda.
Rwanda says that some of the ousted authors have hosted in Congo since the genocide, forming militias with alliances with the Congolese government, and constitutes a threat to the Congolese Tutsis and Rwanda itself.
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The Congo rejects the complaints of Rwanda and says that Rwanda used its proxy militias to control and loot lucrative minerals such as Coltan, which is used in smartphones.
The UN and the world powers fear that the conflict can transform into a regional war, similar to those of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 which killed millions, mainly hunger and disease.
Corneille Nangaa, head of the Congo River Alliance, who includes the M23, suggested that the objective of the rebels is to replace President Felix Tshisekedi and his government in the capital.
The United Nations Peace Soldiers were taken in the fighting. South Africa said that three of its soldiers had been killed in cross fires between government troops and rebels and a fourth had succumbed to injuries of previous fighting, bearing the number of its deaths in last week at 13.
