The United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) describes an “increasingly volatile” security situation in the east in a weekend message to its staff. of the country, where the fighting continues.

The M23 (March 23 Movement) rebellion, predominantly Tutsi, “has reached the northern outskirts of Sake [about twenty kilometers west of Goma, capital of North Kivu]”, specifies the UN mission, which adds that “other armed elements have been spotted in Virunga National Park and are threatening to cut the Goma-Sake road”.

The message contains containment and evacuation instructions for MONUSCO staff in Goma, as well as an assembly card in the event of an acute deterioration in the situation.

Goma, which has more than a million inhabitants and nearly a million displaced people, has been surrounded by the M23 rebellion and units of the Rwandan army since February, which saw the intensification of clashes. The only exit routes are Lake Kivu, to the south, and the Rwandan border, to the east.

Thursday April 4, Indian troops from the United Nations (UN) deployed around Sake to prevent the progress of the rebels towards Goma abandoned their positions, against the advice of their hierarchy, according to an internal MONUSCO document consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “At least three defensive positions” were taken “by the M23 and the Rwandan army” after their abandonment by Indian soldiers, it is written in the same document.

Large parts of North Kivu conquered by the M23

On Sunday morning, substitute militias of the FARDC (Armed Forces of the DRC) opened fire against peacekeepers in the outskirts of Sake, “with approximately 350 small arms ammunition and two RPG-type rockets,” the mission reported .

Saturday evening, the explosion of a grenade in a camp for displaced people, between Goma and Sake, left five people dead and several injured, according to medical sources in Goma. When contacted, the authorities and those in charge of the camp said they had no details regarding the perpetrators.

Exchanges of artillery fire took place on Saturday and Sunday around Sake and on the western outskirts of Goma. Two civilians are believed to have died and two others injured in Mushaki (ten kilometers west of Sake, in the M23 zone), according to several sources contacted by telephone from Goma. They attribute these shots to the government coalition.

After eight years of dormancy, the M23 took up arms again at the end of 2021 and, with the support of Rwanda, seized large swathes of North Kivu. On Sunday, the Rwandan authorities opened in Kigali the hundred days of commemoration of the Tutsi genocide thirty years ago, during which more than 800,000 people were killed in around a hundred days.