Friday, January 24, 2024
Goma, DR Congo

Clashes resumed on Friday in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), between the Congolese army and the Rwandan-backed anti-government armed group M23, with the UN citing the figure of 400,000 displaced by the fighting since the beginning of January.
After the failure of a DRC-Rwanda mediation under the aegis of Angola, the M23 has regained ground in recent weeks and is now encircling the provincial capital Goma, which has a population of one million and at least as many displaced persons.
“The number of displaced people is now over 400,000 this year alone, almost double the number reported last week,” said a spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Matthew Saltmarsh, at a press briefing in Geneva.
On Thursday evening, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “alarmed” by the upsurge in violence in the region and condemned an M23 “offensive” that could aggravate “the risk of a regional war”.
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi held a crisis meeting in the evening, according to the presidency. He is due to chair a defense council later today.
According to military and UN sources, the military governor of North Kivu, General Peter Cirimwami, who was shot near a front line on Thursday, died on Friday morning.

On the ground, since early morning and after a day of intense fighting the day before, clashes have resumed according to military and security sources, just twenty kilometers from Goma, the city at the heart of the violence that has shaken eastern DRC for thirty years. Goma was briefly occupied at the end of 2012 by the M23 (“March 23 Movement”), which was born that year and militarily defeated the following year.
On the outskirts of Kibati, some ten kilometers north of Goma, the road leading to the front is virtually deserted and guarded by Congolese soldiers and militiamen, according to AFP journalists.
For several days, M23 fighters posted in the hills have been firing shells, according to them. Congolese forces claim to be firing back with rocket launchers, visible from the trailers of their pickups.
At least “two civilians” have been killed in recent days by the shelling, according to local administrator Jean-Marie Malosa.
– Don’t panic” –

Around Sake, some twenty kilometers west of Goma, where fighting also took place on Thursday, the M23 was still present on Friday, according to a military source.
Congolese army (FARDC) helicopter gunships left in the morning for Sake, and detonations echoed as far as Goma, according to AFP journalists and witnesses.

On Thursday, at least a dozen armored personnel carriers from the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (Monusco) were seen heading west. A column of armored vehicles from the Southern African Regional Force (SAMIDRC), supporting the Congolese army, was also seen carrying guns.
Since Thursday, many civilians fleeing the fighting have been making their way on foot towards the center of Goma. Civil society representatives in the provincial capital have called on the population “not to panic, not to leave the city”.
The conflict between M23 (“March 23rd Movement”) fighters, alongside 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers deployed in the east according to the UN, and the FARDC, has been going on for over three years and has aggravated a chronic humanitarian crisis in the region.
Kinshasa accuses Kigali of trying to get its hands on the wealth of eastern Congo, a claim that Rwanda disputes. So far, diplomatic initiatives to resolve the crisis have come to nothing.
A meeting between Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, as part of the peace process overseen by Angola, appointed mediator by the African Union, was cancelled in December for lack of agreement on the terms of a settlement.
Turkey, very active on the African continent, offered on Thursday to mediate between the DRC and Rwanda.

Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have already been declared in the region, only to be broken. The latest ceasefire was signed at the end of July.

Humaniterre with AFP