At least 773 people were killed in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest city in Goma in Congo and its surroundings this week in the middle of the fights with rebels supported by Rwanda who captured the city in an escalation A major conflict of a decade, the Congolese authorities said.
The advance of the rebels in other areas was slowed down by a weakened soldier who recovered certain villages.
There were 773 bodies and 2,880 people injured in the Morgues and Hospitals in Goma, Congolese government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya told a briefing in the capital on Saturday, adding that the number of deaths could be higher .
“These figures remain temporary because the rebels asked the population to clean the streets of Goma. There should be tombs and the Rwandans have taken care to evacuate theirs, “said Muyaya.
Hundreds of residents of Goma returned to the city on Saturday after the rebels promised to restore the basic services, including water and energy. They cleaned up the districts strewn with arms debris and filled with blood sugar.
“I am tired and I don’t know what path. At each corner (there), there is mourning, “said Jean Marcus, 25, one of whom was among those who were killed in the fighting.
M23 is the most powerful of more than 100 armed groups in the running for control in the East Rich in minerals in the Congo, which contains large deposits essential to a large part of the world’s technology. They are supported by around 4,000 soldiers from neighboring Rwanda, according to UN experts, much more than in 2012, when they captured Goma for the first time and held him for days in a conflict led by Ethnic grievances.
While the fights raged with the rebels of the M23 on Saturday, the Congolese army took over the villages of Sanzi, Muganzo and Mukwidja in the territory of Kalehe of South Kivu, which had fallen to the rebels earlier this week, according to two managers of civil society, which spoke with the rebels, according to two officials of civil society, who spoke with the floor with the association Press subject to anonymity due to the fears of their security.
The army of the Central African nation was weakened after losing hundreds of soldiers and foreign mercenaries went to the rebels after the fall of Goma.
The head of the UN peacekeeping, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said on Friday that the M23 and Rwandan forces were about 37 miles (60 km) north of the provincial capital of South Kivu in Bukavu, almost covering the Same distance in the previous two days since they started to advance along Lake Kivu on the border with Rwanda. Lacroix said the rebels “seem to move fairly quickly”, and capture an airport a few kilometers (miles) “would be another really important step”.
Goma’s seizure led to a disastrous humanitarian crisis, the UN and the aid groups said. Goma serves as a humanitarian center, a criticism for many of the six million people displaced by the conflict in eastern Congo. The rebels said they would walk to Kinshasa, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the west.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday that the World Health Organization and its partners had carried out an assessment with the Congo government between January 26 and 30 and reported that 700 people had been killed and 2800 injured in Goma and nearby. Dujarric confirmed at AP that deaths had taken place at that time.
The rebellious advance left in its wake extrajudicial murders and a forced conscription of civilians, the spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Office, Jeremy Laurence said on Friday.
He said: “We have also documented summary executions of at least 12 people by M23” on January 26 to 28, adding that the group occupied schools and hospitals in the province and submits civilians to forced conscription and at forced work.
Congolese forces have been accused of sexual violence while the fight against rages in the region, said Laurence, adding that the UN checks the reports that Congolese troops have violated 52 women in southern Kivu.
The capture of Goma brought humanitarian operations to “a stop, by cutting a vital life buoy for the delivery of aid in the East (Congo),” said Rose Tchwenko, director of the Mercy Corps Aid Group to the Congo.
“The climbing of violence against Bukavu raises even more displacement, while the rupture of humanitarian access leaves the communities blocked without support,” she said.
