Rebels seized the airport of east Congo’s largest city Goma on Tuesday, potentially cutting off the main route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of displaced people, after capturing the city in an offensive that left dead bodies lying in the streets.
M23 fighters marched into Goma on Monday in the worst escalation since 2012 of a 30-year conflict rooted in the long fallout from the Rwandan genocide and the struggle for control of Congo’s abundant mineral resources.
In the Congolese capital Kinshasa, 1,600km west of Goma, protesters attacked a UN compound and embassies including those of Rwanda, France and the United States, expressing anger at what they said was foreign interference. Looters ransacked the embassy of Kenya.
Goma is an important hub for people displaced by fighting elsewhere in eastern Congo and aid groups seeking to assist them. The fighting has sent thousands of people streaming out of the city including some who had recently sought refuge there from M23’s offensive since the start of the year.
Just across the border in Rwanda, trucks were unloading large numbers of people fleeing Goma with their children and bundles of possessions wrapped in pieces of fabric.
Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) 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 the threat from Congolese militias, without directly commenting on whether its troops have crossed the border.
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.
Much of the fighting was concentrated around the airport, and by Tuesday afternoon several diplomatic and security sources said the M23 rebels had taken full control of it, putting them in charge of a vital link to the outside world.
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), told a briefing in Geneva that 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.
Francois Moreillon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Congo, said a medicine warehouse had been looted. And he expressed concern 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 big public health issue well beyond the borders of the DRC,” he said.
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 govern Rwanda.
Rwanda says some of the ousted perpetrators have been sheltering in Congo since the genocide, forming militias with alliances with the Congolese government, and pose a threat to Congolese Tutsis and Rwanda itself.
Congo rejects Rwanda’s complaints and says Rwanda has used its proxy militias to control and loot lucrative minerals such as coltan, which is used in smartphones.
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 soldiers were killed in crossfire and a fourth had succumbed to wounds from earlier fighting, bringing the number of its fatalities in the past week to 13.
