GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — Panic swept through eastern Congo’s second-largest city on Saturday as residents fled by the thousands, scrambling to escape the looming advance of Rwanda-backed rebels. Amid chaos and looting, Bukavu braced for what comes next.
A day after M23 fighters entered the outskirts of Bukavu — a city of about 1.3 million people that lies 101 kilometers south of rebel-held Goma — some streets were flooded by residents attempting to leave and looters filling flour sacks with what they could find.
Most people waited in their home, shocked by what filled the vacuum left by Congolese soldiers who abandoned their posts.
“They set fire to the ammunition they were unable to take with them,” said Alain Iragi, among the residents who fled in search of safety on Saturday.
Reports and social media videos showed the region's factories pillaged and prisons emptied while electricity remained on and communication lines open.
“It’s a disgrace. Some citizens have fallen victim to stray bullets. Even some soldiers still present in the city are involved en masse in these cases of looting,” a 25-year-old resident of a neighborhood being looted told The Associated Press.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups that includes M23, blamed Congolese troops and their allies from local militia and neighboring Burundi for the disorder in Bukavu.
“We call on the population to remain in control of their city and not give in to panic,” Lawrence Kanyuka, the alliance's spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday.
Rebels push south
M23, a militia backed by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of Congo’s mineral-rich east.
The DRC government has repeatedly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, a claim that Rwanda denies. Kigali, in turn, alleges that Kinshasa collaborates with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or the FDLR, a Hutu armed group with ties to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, an allegation the DRC rejects.
While the United Nations and United States consider M23 a rebel group, DRC considers it a terrorist organization.
Military operations in the region remain fluid, with clashes leading to significant displacement and humanitarian concerns. Analysts warn that continued instability risks deepening the regional conflict, and several peacekeepers from the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, already have been killed since the recent rebel offensive.
Congolese authorities and international observers have accused it of sexual violence, forced conscription and summary executions. M23's southward expansion encompasses more territory than rebels had previously seized and poses an unprecedented challenge to the central government in Kinshasa.
The rebellion underway has killed at least 2,000 people in eastern Congo and stranded hundreds of thousands of displaced. At least 350,000 internally displaced people are without shelter, the U.N. and Congolese authorities have said.
The rebels on Friday also claimed to have seized a second airport in the region, in the town of Kavumu outside Bukavu.
The AP could not confirm who was in control of the strategically important airport, which Congolese forces have used to resupply troops and humanitarian groups to import aid. The Congo River Alliance claimed on Saturday that M23 had taken control of the airport to prevent Congolese forces from launch airstrikes against civilians.
Government officials and local civil society leaders did not immediately comment, although Congo's Communications Ministry said the rebels had violated ceasefire agreements and attacked Congolese troops working to avoid urban warfare and violence in Bukavu.
The reports of looting and disorder come a day after residents told AP that soldiers in Kavumu — the airport town north of Bukavu — had abandoned their positions to head toward the city. The chain of events mirror what transpired last month in the lead-up to the M23's capture of Goma. Congo’s military, despite its size and funding, has long been hindered by shortcomings in training and coordination and recurring reports of corruption.
Fears of spreading conflict
International leaders are expected to discuss the conflict at the African Union summit in Ethiopia this weekend as DRC President Felix Tshisekedi continues to plead with the international community to intervene to contain the rebels from advancing. However, little progress has been made since the government dismissed a ceasefire that M23 declared last week unilaterally as false.
“Regional escalation must be avoided at all costs,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in Addis Ababa. "The sovereignty and territorial integrity of [Congo] must be respected.”
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