Rwandan-backed rebels have seized control of Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict. Heavy fighting has erupted between Congolese and Rwandan forces along the border, raising fears of a wider regional war.
The rebel alliance spearheaded by the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 militia has announced its capture of the lakeside city of over 1 million people. The city in question lies on the border with Rwanda and was also briefly occupied by M23 in 2012.
Gunfire rang out near the airport, in the city centre and on the border, with two residents claiming there were ongoing clashes between government-aligned militia and M23 fighters.
Escalation of Conflict
Congolese soldiers deployed to Mount Goma, were exchanging artillery fire with Rwandan troops on the other side of the border, in the town of Gisenyi, two U.N. sources speaking from a U.N. site between the two revealed.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the M23 offensive risks deteriorating into a broader regional war.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is home to 100 million people and is approximately the size of Western Europe. Its bountiful mineral supplies are in the sights of Chinese and Western companies as well as multiple armed groups.
Its eastern borderlands are a tinderbox of rebel and militia fiefdoms stemming from two regional wars after Rwanda’s 1994 genocide when Hutu extremists killed almost 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Afterwards, many Hutus, some of them genocide perpetrators and others refugees, fled into Congo after the genocide, which is one of the root causes of instability there.
The Congo-Rwanda Conflict
Rwanda is accusing the Congolese government and army of partnering themselves with a Hutu-led militia that they say threatens Rwanda’s safety and the Tutsis living in Congo.
Congo rejected Rwanda’s claims, however, accusing Kigali of arming M23 in order to control swathes of Congolese territory for the purpose of plundering minerals. The Kinshasa government said Rwanda’s army was present in Goma but Congo’s forces would work to prevent “carnage and loss of human life.”
The M23, the latest in a long line of Tutsi-led rebel movements backed by Rwanda, captured Goma in 2012 but withdrew days later after an agreement brokered by the neighbouring nations.
Corneille Nangaa, the leader of the Congo River Alliance that includes the M23, told Reuters on Monday that his forces were in control of Goma. “They (army soldiers) have started to surrender, but it takes time,” he said.
Tryphon Kin-Kiey Mulumba, chairman of the Air Transport Authority, said early on Monday that the army still held the airport. This statement however, could not be independently verified.
