Congo’s key city on the brink
GOMA, DR CONGO—An armed group backed by Rwandan troops took control of the besieged Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma’s airport on Tuesday, a security source said, following three days of clashes that have killed more than 100 people.
Nearly 1,000 have also been wounded, according to an AFP tally of tolls from Goma’s overflowing hospitals, in three days of intense fighting that have left the eastern DRC’s main city on the brink of falling to the Tutsi-led M23 armed group and its Rwandan allies.
The M23’s seizure of Goma’s airport would represent a major blow to the Congolese army, which has surrendered swathes of the mineral-rich North Kivu province to the M23 and the Rwandan army for weeks.
After entering central Goma on Sunday, days of street-to-street combat involving mortars and gunfire have left bodies strewn across the city’s streets while columns of M23 fighters marched through the eastern provincial capital.
Surrender
It has not been clear which parts of Goma were under the control of Congolese forces or the Rwandan-backed M23, which claimed it had taken the city on Sunday night.
A security source told AFP that M23 fighters had taken the airport on Tuesday, adding that “more than 1,200 Congolese soldiers have surrendered and are confined” to the airport base of the UN’s mission in the DRC.
The lightning offensive marks a major escalation in the DRC’s troubled east.
