Residents in Goma, the biggest metropolis within the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), have been fleeing on Monday after the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group claimed to have captured the regional hub from Congolese forces as preventing escalated regardless of calls from the United Nations Safety Council for the rebels to withdraw.
Gunshots rang out throughout Goma in a single day earlier than dozens of rebels in army uniform early Monday morning marched into the capital of North Kivu province, which sits on the border with Rwanda within the unstable area wealthy in minerals which might be essential to a lot of the world’s know-how.
The Congolese authorities confirmed the presence of M23 rebels in Goma, 1,500km (930 miles) east of the capital Kinshasa, however stopped in need of saying they have been in charge of town.
In a press release on X, authorities spokesman Patrick Muyaya requested Goma residents to remain at residence and in addition urged Congolese nationals all over the world to mobilise in assist of the nation. “No centimetre might be given up!!!” Muyaya wrote.
The March 23 Motion (M23) is one in every of about 100 armed teams vying for a foothold within the mineral-rich area within the decades-long battle. The rebels quickly took over Goma in 2012, earlier than they have been pressured to tug out below worldwide strain, and resurfaced in late 2021, with growing assist from Rwanda, in accordance with Congo’s authorities and UN specialists. Rwanda has denied such assist.
Rwanda’s Ministry of International Affairs accused DRC of failing to enter a dialogue with M23, which it described as a “Congolese insurgent group preventing to guard their neighborhood”.
That failure, it mentioned, has extended the preventing that continues to current “a severe menace to Rwanda’s safety and territorial integrity, and necessitates Rwanda’s sustained defensive posture”.