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M23 rebels claim to seize key DRC city, promise good governance and development


M23 rebels walk alongside residents through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025.
M23 rebels walk alongside residents through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, M23 rebels said they have taken Goma, the capital of the eastern province North Kivu. Monday morning journalists said gunfire was heard throughout the city.

Reuters news reports the DRC government has confirmed that Rwandan government troops entered Goma on Monday.

A journalist in Goma told VOA by telephone that fighting was now going on around the city's airport, and that it appeared to be escalating.

While the journalist was speaking, gunfire could be heard in the background, and he cut off the call to seek shelter.

Patrick Muyaya, the Democratic Republic of Congo's government spokesperson on Monday took to the social media site X to say that authorities in the Central African nation are working "to avoid carnage and loss of human life" amid fighting in Goma against M23 rebels.

The M23 announcement on Sunday came after a lightning advance that has forced thousands of people to flee and fueled concerns of a regional war.

"We have taken Goma and have ordered soldiers to surrender by 3:00 a.m. local time," Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance that includes the M23, told Reuters.

Nangaa said that following negotiations, the rebels had allowed army officers to leave Goma by boat for Bukavu.

"We gave the (DRC military forces) a 48-hour ultimatum to lay down their arms. The ultimatum has already passed, so we say that they can deposit their military equipment at (U.N. mission) MONUSCO," Willy Ngoma, a spokesman for M23, told Reuters.

Ngoma added that surrendering government soldiers were to assemble at one of the city's stadiums ahead of the 3:00 a.m. deadline.

The head of the U.N. mission in the DRC, Bintou Keita, said on Sunday that the M23 and supporting Rwandan forces had penetrated the outer edges of the city.

FILE - Bintou Keita, head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, briefs reporters after the Security Council meeting on the situation concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 29, 2022.
FILE - Bintou Keita, head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, briefs reporters after the Security Council meeting on the situation concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 29, 2022.

"Roads are blocked and the airport can no longer be used for evacuation or humanitarian efforts. M23 has declared the airspace over Goma closed," she said.

"In other words, we are trapped," Keita said in a video briefing from Geneva.

Three U.N. peacekeepers - a Uruguayan and two South Africans –have been killed in the past three days. The escalation in violence has forced the World Food Program to pause emergency operations, the agency said on Sunday.

M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka told Reuters and the French news agency AFP that Goma residents welcomed the takeover.

Kanyuka said Goma "has been liberated from the hands of Mr. [Etienne] Tshisekedi," a reference to DRC's president.

Kanyuka also said "the people of Goma finally ... can enjoy peace and security like the rest of the people living in liberated zones."

The DRC severed all diplomatic ties with Rwanda amid last week's rebel offensive and on Saturday blamed Rwandan snipers for the killing of North Kivu's military governor on Friday.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told The Associated Press on Sunday that the decision to cut ties was a unilateral move by Kinshasa.

Courtesy image of Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe.
Courtesy image of Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe.

Kigali denies backing the M23 but has said it has troops and missiles in North Kivu province to protect Rwanda from DRC forces near the two countries’ shared border.

Rwanda accuses the DRC of fighting alongside the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which is a Hutu ethnic force, which has attacked Tutsis in both countries.

The U.N. Security Council held a special session Sunday on the DRC situation and condemned the M23 advances.

The council members said the advances are a serious violation of an earlier ceasefire, and "exacerbate the grave humanitarian and displacement crisis in the eastern DRC."

The council also said the fighting undermined efforts to reach a lasting peaceful solution to the conflict through the Luanda process – negotiations Angolan President Joao Lourenco mediated between Rwanda and the DRC.

The Security Council members also said they support the U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO and expressed condolences to the families of the peacekeepers killed.

This article was written by VOA's Bill Eagle. Some information was sourced from Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

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