Goma, DRC: Mechanical diggers have spent days excavating the dark volcanic earth of the city of Goma, preparing long trenches in which to bury victims of one of the deadliest battles in decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Humanitarian workers in hazmat suits and teenagers in flip-flops and dirty masks tended to the dead amid the overwhelming stench.
“We have days of mass burials ahead of us,” said Myriam Favier, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Goma, the largest city in the eastern part of the country.
Volunteers bury those who died during a week of clashes in Goma. Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times
Nearly 3000 people were killed in Goma last week, according to early estimates provided by the UN peacekeeping operation in eastern Congo. The fighting between M23, a rebel group that the UN says is funded by Rwanda, and Congolese armed forces resulted in the rebels’ capture of Goma last week.
Millions have died in the past 30 years in DR Congo, where ethnic tensions and fighting over access to land and mineral resources have erupted into several wars. But rarely have so many been killed within just a few days, experts said.
The conflict has its roots in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which spilt over into Congo, leading to decades of fighting. Like the leaders of Rwanda, M23 – named for the signing date, March 23, 2009, of a failed peace agreement – is mostly made up of people from the Tutsi ethnic group.
M23 is one of more than 100 militias roaming the mineral-rich areas of eastern Congo.
“They pose much more of a threat to Congo than any other armed group,” said Judith Verweijen, a researcher with 15 years of experience in eastern Congo who teaches at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
The children of Jean de Dieu Balezi, the celebrated boxer known as Kibomango, attend his funeral in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Wednesday.Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times
According to the United Nations, M23 is planning for “territorial expansion and the long-term occupation and exploitation of conquered territories.”
In April, the group seized Rubaya, home to one of the world’s largest mines of coltan, a key component in the manufacturing of smartphones. M23 has issued mining permits and formed a “statelike administration” for mining production, trade and transport, according to UN experts, with profits of more than $US800,000 ($1.2 billion) a month.
The minerals are eventually routed to Rwanda, according to reports documenting the trade from M23-controlled territories to Congo’s neighbour.
In 2012, M23 pulled out of Goma after Western donors applied diplomatic pressure on Rwanda, cutting much-needed aid. This time around, the same powers have used only words to condemn the offensive.
“Rwanda might be testing the waters to see what it can get away with,” Verweijen said. “That will shape how the M23 insurgency is going to unfold from now on.”
M23 launched its incursion into Goma on January 26 and fully captured the city on January 30 after a months-long offensive in the country. More than 700,000 people have been displaced.
Volunteers on Monday bury those who died during a week of clashes in Goma.Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times
In January, Corneille Nangaa, head of a coalition of groups that includes the M23, said at a news conference, “We’re in Goma to stay. We will continue our march toward Kinshasa.”
Though most fighting has stopped in Goma in recent days, the city’s capture by M23 rebels has raised fears of a broader war between DR Congo, Rwanda and their allies.
The death toll is probably an underestimate, according to Vivian van de Perre, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force based in Goma.
Many bodies still have to be collected in areas of Goma that remain unreachable by humanitarian organisations. More than 2800 additional Congolese have been wounded, nearly two-thirds of them civilians, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The ongoing conflict has already drawn in mercenaries from Eastern Europe and soldiers from allied countries such as Burundi and Uganda. UN peacekeepers who have been deployed in the east of the country for a dozen years have been accused by both sides of not doing enough to end the fighting.
M23 fighters pushed into Goma, bringing violence and death.Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times
In front of the city’s airport on Tuesday, dozens of volunteers and Red Cross workers interred victims in mass graves dug in an already overcrowded cemetery.
The land where bodies can be buried in Goma is limited, Favier said. The city is cornered by Rwanda on its eastern side, Lake Kivu on its southern shore, and camps for displaced people and M23-controlled territories in its eastern and northern areas.
Rwanda has denied backing M23, even as officials from the United Nations highlight how its army and intelligence services train, arm and command the rebels. Experts say that Rwanda seeks to exploit mineral resources in eastern Congo by using M23 as a proxy group.
Since capturing Goma, M23’s fighters have been patrolling the streets aboard vehicles seized from the Congolese army. They wear tactical gear and carry automatic rifles and sophisticated electronic devices that give them the look of a conventional military.
This week, rebel leaders threatened to attack a UN base where 2000 Congolese have taken shelter if peacekeepers didn’t hand them over. Those being protected at the base include high-ranking Congolese military and intelligence officers, the city’s mayor and civil servants, according to UN officials.
On Wednesday, M23 broke a unilateral ceasefire it had declared days earlier and captured a village in Goma’s neighbouring province of South Kivu.
Among many victims buried this week was a celebrated boxer, Jean de Dieu Balezi, known as Kibomango, who was killed by a stray bullet, according to his relatives. Balezi founded the Friendship Boxing Club, where he trained generations of young boxers who were child soldiers, recruited by armed groups such as M23 in eastern Congo.
M23 has ordered locals to clean Goma’s streets, but they remain littered with military uniforms abandoned by Congolese soldiers.
Anna Mapendo looks through debris outside her home in Goma, Congo, She collected dozens of bullets in her courtyard. Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times
“Wherever I sweep, I find these,” Anna Mapendo said as she showed dozens of bullets collected in her courtyard. Mapendo and her husband said that about 20 Congolese soldiers broke into their home last week to escape from M23 fighters who were attacking the airport, which sits behind their house.
Two of their sons were wounded by bullets when they were in their courtyard, Mapendo said. She had just returned from the hospital to take them rice and cassava.
Desire Mirimba, Mapendo’s husband, accused Congolese soldiers of looting their home as they fled the rebels. “We feel safe for now with the new ones,” Mirimba said, referring to M23. “But we know that it’s very precarious.”
Destroyed International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles lie amid debris at a looted World Food Program warehouse as M23 rebels retained control of Goma.Credit: Getty Images
In Goma on Wednesday, pockets of the city remained unreachable to humanitarian agencies that lost months of aid in looting last week.
Medicine, bags of rice from the World Food Program and cans of cooking oil were on sale across the city.
The freeze on foreign aid announced by the Trump administration last week has raised alarm over the deteriorating situation in eastern DR Congo, which had already been one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.