DR Congo violence: Panic in Goma as M23 rebels advance

Last year, an East African force, which was in DR Congo to help protect civilians and secure areas that armed groups had withdrawn from, left the country at the government’s request.

Its departure in December was followed by the end of the latest ceasefire and the recent upsurge in activity by the M23.

President Tshisekedi hopes that a southern African force that recently arrived in its place will have more success as it has a mandate to attack rebel groups.

He has also asked the large UN force in the country, known as Monusco, to leave. It has become increasingly unpopular for its failure to end the conflict during its 25-year deployment.

But there are concerns that the conflict could get even worse after the Congolese president threatened in December to declare war on Rwanda if the rebels attack again.

In an apparent reply to the remarks, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said in January that in defending his country “we will fight like people who have nothing to lose”.

Meanwhile, Natàlia Torrent, from medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has warned that the intensification of fighting in “different areas and on different fronts” since mid-January is having a devastating effect on an already vulnerable population.

“We are in an area that has been already prone to the spread of different epidemics. We have been already working in the last year on cholera or measles and we are afraid… [a] new wave of epidemics are going to surge again,” she told the BBC.

Reflecting on the fighting, Goma resident Mr Bolingo added: “We are the ones who suffer.”

Mr Bashali, who fled from Sake with his wife and nine children, agreed: “Men are dying, children are dying, women are dying, those fighting are dying, what for? We are praying that our country will be peaceful.”