Luggage on their backs, they circulated all morning on Wednesday January 22 on the road to downtown Goma, capital of the province of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The displaced flocks from Minova, a port city conquered by the M23, an armed group supported by Kigali who continues to gain ground at the expense of the Congolese army, in a region where the conflict redoubled since the start of the year.
Some displaced people have already had to flee their home several times, according to the upheavals of a conflict that has lasted for more than thirty years, and since 2021, successive breakthroughs of the M23 and the declines of the Congolese army. “Wherever we go, we find ourselves in an uncertain situation”, Des Hops Anuarite Nabintu, a displaced one encountered by AFP on the road.
By seizing Minova, located about twenty kilometers west of Goma, the M23 which already surrounded the city practically, has still tightened its embrace. The positions of the M23 and the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) are only separated by a narrow arm of water. To the southeast, a peninsula leading to Minova and occupied by the armed group. On the north side, the port of Nzulo, near the provincial capital on the same bank.
To respond to this new threat, the Congolese army announced on Wednesday in a statement the suspension of the circulation of small boats on the lake, in order to avoid enemy infiltration. The FARDC also deployed heavy artillery near the port of Nzulo and the camps of displaced not far, according to humanitarian sources, causing the exodus of the populations.
“De facto” controlled by Rwanda
For several weeks, the clashes between the M23 and the Congolese army have intensified, causing an influx of injured in hospitals and a new massive wave of displaced (237,000 since the beginning of January, according to the UN). Tuesday, the army recognized “A breakthrough” of “The Rwandan army and its M23 puppets” After taking Minova, a commercial node gaping Goma, around fifty kilometers by the road but only about twenty crossing Lake Kivu.
In July, a UN expert report established that 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside the M23, with advanced military technology, and that Rwanda has «In fact» taken it “Control and the operations department of M23”. Kigali has never explicitly recognized a territorial assault in the DRC.
The support of Rwanda as well as the weakness of the FARDC benefit the M23 fighters, according to experts and observers, who do not exclude an upcoming offensive on Goma, a city of more than 1 million inhabitants at the heart of wealth and conflicts that tears the region for more than three decades. At this stage, “Nothing prevents M23 and Rwanda from trying to take Goma”, Esime Reagan Miviri, researcher at the Congolese Institute Ebuteli. «The Luanda process is no longer thereAmerican pressure is no longer there. Rwanda has nothing to fear, it seems to assume this attack ”, summarizes the specialist.
-“We will probably all go too”
Wednesday morning, the displaced fleeing Minova mingled with others who feared the exchanges of fire between belligerents and fled their camps located in areas under the control of the Congolese army. Some have found host families in the city center; Others have dispersed in the many camps surrounding Goma, where more than 100,000 people are piled up under extremely precarious humanitarian conditions.
In the Sam Sam camp, a few hundred meters from the evacuated camps and potential to come, most of the inhabitants have not yet resolved to flee. But the faces are worried. “If the situation persists, even the tenants of this camp will have to go to the city of Goma, s'inquid Kdiba Batu is, if the camps do not run. These people cannot accept Live here with the M23 near. The presence of the displaced from Nzulo comforted us, but as they have just left, we will probably all leave too. ”
The already crowded camp received around 500 moved from Minova since the violence intensified in the area, according to Aristide Sadiki Bichichi, camp secretary. “They lead a more difficult life than us”, he deplores. NGOs hardly intervene in the surroundings because of the risk of bombing.
Renowned for its ineffectiveness and looting
Delivered to themselves, some residents of the Sam Sam camp let their anger burst. “We have left our households, our children, our property. We don't know what the government is doing! ” Indigines David Bonzi, a move from the neighboring territory of Masisi, partly occupied by the M23. “We call on our government to supply arms”, he launches in front of a group of young drums in the rain.
Renowned for its ineffectiveness and looting, the Congolese army has rarely recovered the lost territories in recent months. “The Congolese army will allocate a large amount of resources to be able to overwhelm the M23 at a very local level when it comes to taking up a specific city or village”, explains Remi Dodd, analyst of the Rane network for sub -Saharan Africa. But “Corruption, inadequate equipment, loss of morale and indiscipline […] hinder its ability to respond to M23 ”.
In downtown Goma, where the distant noise of weapons sometimes resonates, an apparent normality still reigns. Shops and services are open, police and soldiers watch for intersections. Despite diplomatic tensions, the border post between the DRC and Rwanda is open and many nationals of the two neighboring countries are traveling in both directions.
