Tensed calm, fears for the future in DRC for a week after the M23 | News of the conflict

On the road west of Gom, the largest city in the eastern democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mary Ashuz and her children walked, carrying their last remaining things with them.

Ashuza, a farmer and a mother for five years in her 40s, fled to the northern Kiva from her house in the neighboring province of South Kiv in mid-January, after the M23 rebels advanced M23 and violent conflicts broke out between the armed group and the congole army.

“The DRC Armed Forces placed a heavy artillery in my village, in Minovo. I testified that the neighboring family of slaughtering. That’s why I fled here to Gom,” she told Al Jazeera.

The family ended up in one of the extended camps for displaced people, but after the soldiers from March 23 (M23) entered the city a week ago, claiming control, she again fled with thousands of others.

Initially, she stayed with one of the host families in the local community, which opened her doors to fellow civilians. But since then, she has decided to leave Goma for good – mainly for lack of help and help.

United Nations, Assistance Bodies and Rights Groups say that the recent escalation of the fight has broken off the essential work of humanitarian agencies in DRC.

The destruction of a place for an internal displaced person (IRL) also forced many to return to their places of origin, with at least 100,000 IRP left Goma in the last week. Some camps have now emptied people, witnesses said.

Many of those who are now returning home from Gom have been forced to escape from their cities and villages in the midst of escalation of struggles. Some feared they were caught in a cross -fire; Others feared the abuse committed by the rebels, the army and his Allied militia Wazalendo. Some residents have said that witnesses are robbery, rape and shooting.

“I left Gom Gom [area of the city] head to Luka Gom to escape. I doubted that the enemy was moving to the city quickly. This is a very dangerous place, “said one woman, the wife of the Congoan soldier, who went through the center of Goma with her children, was afraid she would aim for M23 troops.

M23 download

It was late on Sunday, January 26, 2025, under the cover of Darkness when the M23 fighters entered Gom, after the intense struggles that presented them against the Congolian army and his allies.

Amateur videos circulating online have shown columns of men in a military dress that is not usually seen in the region walking in parts of the city.

M23 published communication, announcing that the “liberation” of the city was “successful”.

Despite a resistance of the congenion army and the Allied militia, until Thursday, Goma was under control of the M23, and the rebels progressed in the south in the direction of Bukavu, the capital of the southern Kivu, and promising to march all the way to the DRC capital, Kinshas.

M23, which first appeared in 2012, was briefly defeated until it was repeated in 2022, seizing the territory through the Eastern DRC, causing a major displacement crisis.

UN experts claim that M23 has supported thousands of soldiers from neighboring Rwanda, which Kinshas says is trying to rob resources from the eastern region rich in mineral minerals. Rwanda denied the allegations that it was a sponsor M23.

Since M23 claimed Goma on January 26, More than 700 people were killed and almost 3000 were wounded, according to officials.

Last week, the city became the “true center of human despair, according to some of its inhabitants.

“Everything stopped in the city,” she told Al Jazeera Kubuya Chanceline, a resident of Ndosho County, one of the most densely populated areas of Gom.

“We do not know which way we will turn and what will be with our future, which was already darkened by the city’s environment.”

Cutting power and looting

As the fighting raged, the internet was cut off, and also for electricity and water supply. The shops and companies were also closed.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, some of the inhabitants plundered – many are out of despair.

The warehouse of the UN World Food Program (WFP), located about 2 KM (1.2 miles) from the center of Gom, was discharged and all food items were taken and non-Croatian.

In the southeast of Gom, in the Kyeshero district, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is full and all the documents containing Western Periphery of the City.

Amuri Provndo, a resident of Gom who participated in the robbery, said he did it out of survival.

“We are all worse in the time of the war. I had nothing to eat, I gave the shelter of five displaced people and when I heard that the world’s food program was robbed, I went to get a parcel,” he said, revealing that there was a stampedo at the time a warehouse that caused some deaths.

“I saw three people fall off the shelves and lose their lives during the robbery scene. It really scared me,” he said.

A week after Goma caught, with M23 now fully in charge, electric and internet connections, which were cut off, returned to most of the city.

Many shops are reopened in the city center. Food products were on shelves, but the prices of some items doubled or even tripled.

“I ask the new authorities to do whatever they can to stabilize the situation here,” said Julienne Anifa, mother seven shopping on the Alanine market in the crowd. “We buy various products at a high price. And that is economically influenced by this time of war. “

At a press conference on Thursday, Corneille Nanga, coordinator of the Fleuve Congo (AFC) Federation, to whom M23 belongs, assured the city’s residents that life would soon return to normal.

Otherwise, the families of those who lost their lives in the week of violence planned to bury their loved ones.

‘I’m going home’

Although the Congolian army and his allies have lost control of the city and the tense peace is surrounded by him now, not all Goma residents are worried.

For their part, it seemed that residents who spoke with Al Jazeera slept in three main camps. Some said they felt facilitated because now there is less military presence and less militarized feelings in a city that has been on tenterhooks for months as the rebels have progressed and displaced people from other parts who have flew into the city.

Other residents simply decided to accept what happened, feeling that they could not change their situation so that they could work and in the system operated by the new occupiers of the city.

However, the third group is more afraid of – it is afraid that, as national authorities in Kinshasi promise contrafensive to re -approach the crowd, a new attack will result in only more victims.

For many residents, the most important thing is to ensure peace and silence.

“It doesn’t matter who controls the city, the most important thing for me is that I can live in security, move … and have a little money for my family,” said Faraja Joseph, 40, father five.

The Congo’s government vowed to take control of Goma, but experts and locals take care that the awkward place of the city – in the immediate vicinity of the active volcano, on the shores of Lake Kivo, and besides the border with the Rundan – make it difficult for the militant in Militat. .

World and regional leaders have condemned the M23 download, and Rwanda is allegedly involved, urging the dialogue to find a diplomatic solution for escalating conflict, which groups for real say to create a “Humanitarian disaster”. The UN also accused the M23 and the Congo’s army of serious violations of human rights.

Meanwhile, as the fight and high-level diplomacy continues, civilians in the Eastern DrC continue to seek seemingly elusive security.

For thousands of double displaced people walking Gomas, once again fleeing from the old camps and the host community, the return where they come is often the only consolation I can find.

“I’m going home to my village,” said Ashuza, mother five of southern Kivu, for Al Jazeera. “I prefer to die in minies, near my family and my country, instead of dying away [away here in Goma]”, She said, her children who wear kitchen tools and other things, one of them without shoes on their feet, as they continued toward the territory of Massisi and beyond.