‘On the streets I once walked dead bodies lay prostrate and forgotten’

Plumes of smoke rise daily from the crater of Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For the residents of Goma, the city lying in its shadow, the smoke is a strong reminder of the precarious balance between peace and chaos. A reminder of how quickly their lives can change.

For years now, Goma has been terrorised by the presence of the M23, a powerful paramilitary group allegedly backed by Rwanda, which has its sights on ending a near decade-long power struggle against the Congolese army. Last week, the chaos the town has been fearing finally arrived in full force. From their northern stronghold in the Virunga National Park, the M23 led a violent insurgency into the city, terrorising civilians and killing anyone in their path. This triggered a spate of appalling violence and worsened the already dire humanitarian crisis.

M23 fights pushed into Goma, bringing violence and death.Credit: NYT

The stories coming out of Goma are shocking and devastating to any ears, but they have particular resonance for me. Last year, I worked in Goma for three months as a doctor for a humanitarian organisation, my first mission with the organisation and a lifelong dream.

Before the violence broke out last week, we serviced multiple health clinics around the city to fill the gaps in primary healthcare services. The M23’s presence in the national park had previously forced a mass displacement of Congolese refugees into the outskirts of the town. These refugees, or deplacés, had set up makeshift tent cities constructed from white tarpaulin courtesy of USAid and UNICEF. Technicolour graffiti adorned the walls with messages like “Paix” and “Congo Freedom”. On another, a simple plea: “aide-moi.”

What we saw was harrowing. Women presented to us with ulcerating metastatic breast cancers; 40-year-old men with back pain due to tuberculosis of the spine hobbled into the clinic on wooden canes; another woman I saw presented with a football-sized tumour growing from the palm of her hand. Close living conditions in the refugee camps also led to an epidemic of sexual violence, requiring both medical and psychological support for the victims. These camps were emptied or destroyed, the cries of their inhabitants drowned out by noise of artillery fire in the city to the south.

Seeing the crisis unfold on streets I came to know so well was heartbreaking, like trying to recapture the memories of a friend you’ll never see again. The once-heaving city centre, a complicated morass of motorbikes, street vendors, and markets, lay deserted, replaced with troops in deep green combat fatigues carrying Kalashnikovs.

Refugees fled as M23 advanced.Credit: NYT

That familiar white noise of car horns, irate commuters, and traffic police, so typical of a vibrant city like Goma, was replaced with the rattle of semi-automatic weapons and distant explosions. Each noise was a murder, each explosion a catastrophe. The city was completely overwhelmed and borderline unlivable. Water and electricity were cut off, and remain so.

On the streets I once walked and drove down daily, near the shopping centre where I bought my groceries, dead bodies lay prostrate and forgotten. Artillery shells were dropped with impunity on Goma’s suburbs, leading to needless suffering and death for residents.

The local hospital, where I spent many afternoons discussing sick patients from our nearby clinics, was rammed with patients, mostly victims of the recent violence, so much so that the hospital car park was being used as a triage point. There were reports that the M23 raided some hospitals and opened fire. The cruelty is simply unfathomable.

Though most of the fighting in Goma has subsided, UN peacekeepers estimate nearly 3000 people are dead. M23 declared a unilateral ceasefire would start on Tuesday, but almost immediately broke it by seizing another city.

Australian doctor Rory Marples worked in Goma last year.

I’m devastated that all the work put in by our organisation has now either been halted or abandoned due to the conflict. I’m devastated that my Congolese colleagues, some of the kindest and most diligent people I’ve ever worked with, the ones who could make a spot bedside diagnosis of typhoid fever or malaria while I fumbled for the answer looking through textbooks, now face an uncertain future dogged by violence.

That Goma airport, where only four weeks ago I bought my final ground coffee with the last of my Congolese francs before flying home to London, has been taken over by the M23 and is closed despite recent pleas from the UN for it to reopen. That the apartment block I shared with my humanitarian colleagues, where we watched movies and drank and laughed just to burn through each day, now lies empty, with most staff evacuated to avoid the worst of the violence and only being drip-fed back as the fighting eases off. This is not to mention the numb realisation that any hope of re-establishing the healthcare infrastructure needed to service both the town and the influx of refugees from the violence is all but lost. This week, there are reports that some of the camps I worked in are filling up again.

This past fortnight is a shocking development in a protracted conflict where the only true victims are the innocent civilians caught between warring ideologies. In some measure, this conflict is a power grab to control the area’s rich natural resources. Tin, tantalum, tungsten, cobalt, copper, lithium, and numerous other minerals lie deep underground and are a vital ingredient in smartphones, electric vehicles, and batteries. They form a key part of the global technology market now shaping the world’s decarbonised and digital future.

Family members weep over the coffin of a two-year-old who was killed in an explosion during the fighting.Credit: Getty Images

Miners scramble to dig them up and sell them to the highest bidder, with Western nations benefiting, albeit through unregulated supply chains. As the world turns towards renewables and green technology, the Congo has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in global commerce, and the M23 stand to gain much by controlling the area. This violence is further complicated by a deeper tension between the warring Hutu and Tutsi tribes, an ancient conflict that most recently triggered the Rwandan Genocide of 30 years ago, where more than 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in a matter of weeks. The Tutsi-led Rwandan government, however, denies any involvement with the M23 and instead blame the conflict on the Congolese.

Trade wars might start in Washington or Beijing, but their ripples spread wide. This is the humanitarian cost of modern technology. The West’s appetite for technological change can often be at odds with its blue-sky promises of international development and global health. Our desire for growth, often blinkered to real consequences outside our direct field of vision, must be reconciled to the effects this may have on low-income nations who stand to lose the most.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the current conflict, which is partially motivated by the control for precious minerals, has not only displaced vulnerable people but now threatens to destabilise a country still emerging from the long shadow of genocide and colonialism.

The riches from deep beneath the surface promise riches far above it, yet it is always the locals who reap the least and suffer what they must. The West must confront this uncomfortable truth as more violence spreads. We must ensure peace in the region is guaranteed because of the resource boom, not in spite of it, and before the bodies of more innocent victims are left to rot on the streets.

Rory Marples is an Australian doctor who works in surgery at a leading hospital in London.

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