Congo’s Goma city was already home to thousands of people who had fled years of war as rebel groups jostled for control of the region’s mineral wealth. In the three weeks leading to the city’s capture, the fighting with the M23 displaced about 400,000 people, according to the U.N.
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M23 rebels escort government soldiers and police who surrendered to an undisclosed location in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. Image- AP
In eastern Congo, millions of people are trapped amid an escalating rebellion, facing a grim dilemma: retreat into the interior of the country to seek refuge with a weak and disorganised army or cross into neighboring Rwanda which is accused of supporting the rebels.
The unchecked rebel advance, which has led to the capture of Goma, the region’s largest city, raises serious concerns about the Congolese military’s ability to protect civilians. As a decades-long conflict reignites nearly 1,000 miles from the capital, the situation grows increasingly dire just a short distance from Rwanda’s border.
Widow Francine Nsengiyumva and her three children have little to eat and sleep on the hard ground, but like many others at a makeshift displacement centre in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo she is scared to return home.
On Sunday, she and other women and children gathered outside at the centre, a school in the Lac Vert district of Goma, the city seized by M23 rebels last week in the worst escalation of fighting in the region in more than a decade.
The insurgents want to show they can restore order and have urged civilians to return to normal life, but 23-year-old Nsengiyumva said it would not be safe to go back to her village of Nzulo, near Goma.
”Those who took our land are still there, still killing people and terrorising,” she said, cooking a pot of beans over an open fire.
”We will only return when there is peace.”
The group is among the hundreds of thousands more people displaced by the surge in hostilities since the start of the year. Many, lik