Kinshasa/Goma, DRC, Jan. 30 (EFE). – At least 111 bodies were collected in the streets of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, between Wednesday and Thursday after clashes between the army and the armed group March 23 Movement (M23), which took over the city on Monday, a civil society leader confirmed to EFE.
“We have been working with the Red Cross; I must it that the number of victims is very high. In these two days, we have already collected more than a hundred bodies; we have not yet reached all the city’s neighborhoods,” Mario Ngavho, the president of Goma’s civil society, told EFE by telephone.
“The fighting continues in the neighborhoods controlled by forces loyal to the Congolese army. Yesterday and today, we reached about 111 bodies,” said Ngavho, who stressed that the count was still preliminary.
According to him, most of the victims were killed by firearms during clashes in the last three days following the M23’s entry into Goma.
“The operation started yesterday. Our vehicles are going around the city to collect the bodies and bury them. I can’t say exactly how many bodies have already been recovered,” a Red Cross worker in North Kivu told EFE on condition of anonymity.
“The Red Cross has been evacuating the bodies of those killed by gunfire since yesterday. There are many, but currently it is difficult to say the exact number because we are still working on the ground,” the source said.
Reagan Kimbale, communications officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross in North Kivu, told EFE that they have set up a public hotline.
“We have received several calls from people alerting us to the presence of lifeless bodies lying in the avenues,” Kimbale said.
On Tuesday, the UN also warned that bodies were lying in the streets, hospitals were overwhelmed, and there had been an increase in reports of sexual violence, rape, and looting.
The emergency has left hospitals in Goma, a city of some two million people and home to international NGOs and UN agencies, overwhelmed by the influx of wounded.
According to the ICRC, more than 800 people with gunshot wounds have been itted to the city’s Ndosho hospital since the beginning of the month.
“Since the beginning of January, we have received more than 800 wounded people; we have a capacity of 146 beds,” Kimbale said.
“This is a delicate situation. We have to receive new wounded and see how we can discharge the old ones,” he added.
The ICRC spokesman also reported that a warehouse at the facility had been looted.
UN World Health Organization teams “cannot move freely to the hospitals, even ambulances cannot move. It’s a public health nightmare,” said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, WHO representative in the DRC.
“There are reports of 2,029 wounded in health facilities and other points of care and 45 dead across three health zones in North Kivu,” the UN health agency said in a statement.
The M23, a mainly ethnic Tutsi rebel group close to Rwanda and Uganda, resumed lightning attacks against the Congolese army in North Kivu in November 2021.
In March 2022, the group launched an offensive with repeated seizures and losses of territory.
Since then, it has advanced on several fronts to position itself near Goma, which the group occupied for ten days in 2012.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accuses Rwanda of ing the M23. This armed group resumed its offensives in North Kivu in 2021.
Although Rwandan authorities deny alleged collaboration with the rebel group, the UN has confirmed the alliance.
Meanwhile, Rwanda and the M23 accuse the Congolese army of collaborating with the rebel group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), founded in 2000 by leaders of the 1994 genocide and other Rwandans exiled in the DRC to regain political power, a collaboration also confirmed by the UN.
Since 1998, the eastern DRC has been embroiled in a conflict fueled by rebel militias and the army, despite the presence of the United Nations through the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monusco). EFE
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