Conflict in DRC escalates as rebels enter the city of Goma
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo – The group of rebels marched into the centre of east Congo’s largest city on Monday, witnesses said, in the latest escalation of decades of conflict in a region already suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The rebel alliance, spearheaded by the M23 movement, said it had captured the whole of the lakeside city, but that could not be independently confirmed.
Gunfire rang out near the airport, city centre, and border with Rwanda, with two residents reporting ongoing clashes between government-aligned militia and M23 fighters.
U.N. staff and their families were evacuating to Rwanda on Monday morning, where 10 buses were waiting to pick them up.
On Sunday, the A3+ group of the Security Council (Algeria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Guyana) called for a political solution to the conflict in the DRC while respecting the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“Our consultations with the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda and our discussions with the UN secretariat have reinforced our conviction that the solution to the conflict (in DRC) should be political and not military,” said Sierra Leone’s UN representative, Ambassador Michael Imran Kanu, who spoke on behalf of the A3+, at a UN Security Council meeting chaired by Algeria.
Congo has more than 100 armed groups, mainly in the east of the central African nation of 100 million people that is roughly the size of Western Europe.
In 2012, the M23 rebels captured Goma but withdrew days later after an agreement brokered by neighbouring nations.
The 2012 fall of Goma led to the deployment of a new U.N. force, an overhaul of the Congolese army, and diplomatic pressure on Rwanda, leading to the M23’s defeat the next year and a deal calling for its demobilisation.
But the group never fully disarmed and launched a fresh offensive in 2022 that has seen it capture vast swathes of mineral-rich North Kivu province, including lucrative mines.
The rebels’ advance since the start of the year has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, on top of 3 million displaced in east Congo in 2024, according to the U.N.
