When I first drove into DR Congo’s eastern city of Goma, it was hard for me to tell I had entered a conflict zone.
Goma residents filled the streets a few miles from the border with Rwanda – commuters headed to work, hawkers sold goods by the roadside and taxi drivers scrambled to win customers.
But it only took a few minutes to notice there was a new “government” in town.
As I reached a checkpoint near a police post formerly run by the Congolese authorities, gun-toting fighters from the M23 rebel group stopped my car.
Last week M23 had captured Goma, an eastern city of nearly two million people, after a lighting advance in DR Congo’s eastern region.
At least 700 people in the city were killed and close to 3,000 injured as the rebels clashed with DR Congo’s army and its allies, according the UN and the Congolese government.
M23, which is made up of ethnic Tutsis, say they are fighting for minority rights, while DR Congo’s government says the Rwanda-backed rebels are seeking control of the eastern region’s vast mineral wealth.
At the checkpoint M23 rebels peered into my car, asked my driver a few brief questions, then waved us into the devastated city.
The rebels faced no opposition – it was like they had always been there.
I made my way to one the few hospitals treating wounded victims and as I entered, cries of pain echoed through the corridors.
I met Nathaniel Cirho, a medical doctor who, in a strange role reversal, sat in a hospital bed with a sling around his left arm.
A bomb had landed on the house next to his and Mr Cirho and his neighbours were struck by the resulting shrapnel.
“I sustained an injury on my arm. A 65-year-old man was injured on his abdomen. After surgery, he didn’t survive,” he said with regret.
Several wards away, an elderly woman lay in her another hospital bed, hooked up to an oxygen tank.
She had plucked a bullet from her own arm after a fierce exchange of fire broke out in her neighbourhood.
“Suddenly my hand felt cold, and I realised I had been shot,” she said, struggling to find her speech.
For days, she had nursed the gunshot wound without help. She told me she was eventually escorted to a public hospital by M23 fighters.
M23 rebel troops walk freely through the city [Getty Images]
The woman asked to be moved to a private hospital, where she is now receiving treatment, because she was not receiving adequate attention from the overstretched doctors.
But even at this second hospital, medics were overwhelmed as an increasing number of patients came through the doors.
“We have treated most of them because we had contingency plans,” a doctor, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said.
He added: “On Sunday when the fighting began, we received 315 patients and we treated them.”
But now, the hospital counts over 700 patients with various degrees of injury, the doctor told me.
He spoke of receiving patients with “gunshot wounds to the head, others on the chest, stomach, hands and legs”.
A destroyed armoured vehicle is seen following clashes in the outskirts of Goma [Getty Images]
As eastern DR Congo reels in political disquiet, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war by the rival parties.
The doctor in this private hospital corroborated the UN’s statement, saying his facility has so far received about 10 victims of rape and gender-based violence.
Outside the hospital and into the city centre, there was a mixture of serenity and circumspection.
People walked past four bullet-riddled vans, witnessing what played out when they were sheltering for safety.
Although the gunfire and explosions in Goma have all but died down, not all establishments are back to business as normal. A few shops have opened in certain streets, but not in others. Major banks also remain shuttered.
Perhaps some remain wary that anything could happen amid the volatile security situation in the wider North Kivu province.
“People are afraid… I am still afraid because those who caused the tension are still with us and we don’t know what is going on,” shop owner Sammy Matabishi said.
“But the bad thing is that there are no people to buy from us, many have gone to Rwanda, [the Congolese city of] Bukavu, Kenya and Uganda.”
He adds that traders who import goods from neighbouring countries have been unable to transport products into city.
Abandoned military gear lays on the floor outside the base of the UN peacekeeping unit [BBC]
Many residents I spoke to said they had come to terms with M23 running the place.
And as an outsider I could see the rebels were intent on asserting their control.
They had taken over the office of the North Kivu military governor, who they had killed as they advanced on Goma.
Fighters were also present in strategic areas around the city, while others patrolled the streets on pickup trucks, weapons in hand.
During the whole time I was in Goma, I did not see a single active Congolese soldier.
I did, however, see abandoned trucks emblazoned with “FARDC”, the French acronym for the DRC’s armed forces.
Near the base of the UN peacekeeping mission (Monusco) – who have been tasked with protecting civilians from rebel forces – military fatigues, magazines and bullets were strewn across the road.
“When M23 arrived here, they surrounded our army,” Richard Ali who lives nearby, told me.
“Many removed their military uniforms, threw away their weapons and wore civilian clothes. Others ran away.”
A world Food Programme warehouse in Goma was looted during the fighting [Getty Images]
As M23 rejoices over a major conquest, the Congolese government continues to refute the rebels’ claim that they have totally captured Goma.
The authorities accuses M23 of illegally occupying their land -with the support of Rwanda – and promises to recover any lost territory.
Although Rwanda used to consistently deny backing the rebels, its response has shifted to more defensive one, in which government spokespeople states that fighting near its border is a security threat.
The rebels are now reported to be moving south towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, and have vowed to reach capital city Kinshasa.
For now, Goma remains their biggest coup. Conditions there foreshadow what life could be come for many more Congolese people, should the M23 gain more ground.
Additional reporting from the BBC’s Robert Kiptoo and Hassan Lali in Goma
More about the conflict in DR Congo:
[Getty Images/BBC]
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