Aid groups in Goma say their response to the city’s capture by M23 rebels and Rwandan troops late last month is being hampered by insecurity and funding cuts, as uncertainty also grows around how they will work under a new rebel administration.
Residents of the city – the biggest in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – said they have been supporting each other as best they can, sharing food, doing emergency first aid, and accommodating people displaced by the fighting.
“It is difficult to see others suffer and fold your arms,” said Israel Aksanti, who was wounded by shrapnel during the battle for Goma and is still receiving treatment in hospital. “We have this spirit between us of love, mutual aid, and charity.”
Goma is a humanitarian relief hub for all of eastern DRC, and was the epicentre of a vast crisis before it fell. It hosted nearly one million people displaced by earlier waves of the M23 conflict – who survived in sprawling camps of tarpaulin shelters.
The Rwanda-backed rebel group launched an offensive in late 2021, winning swathes of territory in North Kivu province from the Congolese army. By 2022, it had surrounded Goma, the provincial capital, where some two million people live.
The rebels made a push for Goma last month, alongside Rwandan troops. The attack culminated in brutal fighting in the city centre on 26-28 January, before the last pro-government forces fell. Hundreds, potentially thousands, were killed.
Local residents said they have limited means to assist one-another after houses were obliterated by shelling, property was looted en masse, and as food prices have soared at markets since the rebels consolidated control.
International and national aid groups said they are providing emergency relief as security allows but are struggling to bring in lifesaving humanitarian cargo and have lost key supplies to looting.
Several aid officials said they are now figuring out how to balance a relationship with the rebels in Goma and the sovereign Congolese government in the capital Kinshasa, some 1,000 miles to the west.
They said response efforts have also been impacted by the freeze of US aid funding, which accounted for nearly 70% of the $1.3 billion that DRC received in humanitarian support last year.
That money goes to water and sanitation programmes and in responding to epidemics and treating survivors of sexual violence, among other things, all areas of major concern in Goma.
“None of us will be able to respond to the needs with the means we have,” Myriam Favier, the head of the Goma office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told The New Humanitarian.
Humanitarian supplies needed
Though the fighting has now stopped, countless problems abound. Power lines were struck during the fighting, causing blackouts and water shortages. Electricity and water issues are still not fully resolved, which is raising the risk of disease outbreaks.
Aid groups and medical workers said the situation has been especially critical in overcrowded hospitals, which don’t have sufficient equipment or medicine to treat patients, many of whom require surgery for major shrapnel and gunshot wounds.
Much of the initial humanitarian response has been led by local medics, volunteers conducting hasty burials, and ordinary residents of Goma, which lies on the Rwandan border.
Aksanti, the man who was wounded by shrapnel, said he welcomed a family from a displacement camp into his house “because they had nowhere to go” and were caught in crossfire.
After he was injured, Aksanti said friends and neighbours have been coming to the hospital to prepare him food, and have been sending his family messages and prayers every day.
“Others visit to strengthen and encourage me,” Aksanti said. “I tell myself that there are people who are there for us. It motivates me, and I hope that I will heal and recover my health.”
International aid groups – many of which are understaffed because they evacuated personnel before the fighting – said they are short of supplies, especially after mass looting swept Goma following its fall to the rebels.
Some residents ransacked depots of UN agencies, including the World Food Programme, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and the ICRC. “They even ripped out the toilets,” said one aid worker, who declined to be named, describing one warehouse.
Resupplying is currently difficult. Goma’s airport – once the main entry point for humanitarian cargo – is shut, with the runway and control tower damaged in the fighting.
“One of the most urgent things is to have that airport functional.”
The most secure way in and out of the city is via the Rwandan border, which adds layers of complexity. One aid official said the M23 has started trying to tax trucks travelling via Rwanda, though The New Humanitarian could not fully confirm this.
“One of the most urgent things is to have that airport functional,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the country director in DRC for MSF, explaining that an airlink is vital for receiving the needed volume of supplies.
Insecurity also remains a serious problem, aid officials said. The M23's takeover has left the city without any police force, and robberies and shootings are routine – though they were also common before the takeover.
Incidents of vigilante justice have spiked, according to data from aid groups shared with The New Humanitarian. The violence brings more risk for aid workers, and greater difficulties in providing aid, with operations grounded in moments of tension.
“The M23 ordered us to leave”
Going forward, aid groups are worried that the government in Kinshasa might hinder the entry of aid into territory it considers to be occupied by Rwanda and the M23, not wanting them to be legitimised or to benefit from humanitarian relief.
Huge uncertainty already hovers over simple matters such as completing paperwork needed to transport goods, or getting visas for foreign workers, according to several NGO staff. “It is not clear for the procedures,” said one official.
“We are going to be completely trapped in a fight,” the official added, referring to the battle between the M23 and the Congolese government. “We don’t know how things are going to play out.”
Humanitarians are reluctant to speak openly about their relations with the M23 for fear of jeopardising their work. However, several officials criticised the group, especially for their handling of the displaced people who have been living in Goma.
Before the attack on the city, the displaced population was estimated at about 800,000 people. Many shifted around during the fighting, and some have now returned to their villages, either because aid is running short or because the M23 told them to.
“The M23 ordered us to leave the camp, and people who used to give us food aren’t doing it anymore,” said Noella, a displaced woman, standing among a large crowd of other displaced people, many of whom were waiting to return home.
The M23, which has sought to project the image that it is protecting the civilian population, maintains that displaced people are returning of their own accord. But reports of verbal instructions to pack up and leave are ubiquitous.
M23 officers issued a 72-hour departure deadline in some of the largest displacement sites west of the city, according to the UN’s emergency aid coordination agency (OCHA), which says around 110,000 people have left in recent days.
Following the deadline, there was chaos in some of the camps as displaced people looted NGO storehouses, according to four humanitarian officials.
The officials told The New Humanitarian they had received assurances from M23 cadres that the group would not clear the camps by force. One said of the M23: “They are definitely saying one thing and doing another.” Another said the M23 had “tricked” aid groups.
It is unclear why the M23 is dismantling the displacement camps, but it has done so outside of Goma in other areas under its control, in what some perceive as a way to demonstrate that it is bringing peace to locals.
Lampaert of MSF said land conflict is a real danger if hundreds of thousands of people suddenly return to their villages, as well as overloading an extremely fragile health system.
M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka did not respond to a request for comment by The New Humanitarian. Nor did a spokesperson for the Congolese government.
Aid corridors
Ghislain Kalwira, a communications manager for a local NGO called AGIR-DRC, said there is an urgent need to set up humanitarian corridors so that aid operations in Goma can be re-established and reinforcements sent.
Kalwira said the group – which had been providing food for displaced people in the Goma camps – was hamstrung during the fighting and is only now starting to assess needs in the city.
“I have a family, with five children and I do not know how I will feed them and take care of them when I leave this hospital bed.”
“[There were] many people who needed to be taken care of – many families who needed to be assisted with water and everything necessary. But we couldn't because like everyone else we stayed in our homes.”
Aksanti, the man wounded by shrapnel, called for humanitarian organisations and people of good will to provide more assistance to Goma. He said his house was badly damaged by shelling, and his business was looted during the fighting.
“I have a family, with five children and I do not know how I will feed them and take care of them when I leave this hospital bed,” he said, adding that local residents have the will to assist one another “but lack the means”.
Alice Uwimana, another Goma resident, said she is trying to think positively about the future, even as she deals with the trauma of losing two brothers last month to stray bullets.
“I hate war more than anything in the world,” she told The New Humanitarian. “[But] I am starting to understand that this is life and that we must be resilient”
Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.
