{"id":435377,"date":"2025-02-02T08:39:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T05:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=435377"},"modified":"2025-02-02T08:39:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T05:39:32","slug":"congo-says-773-dead-in-weeklong-fighting-as-military-tries-to-repel-rebels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/congo-says-773-dead-in-weeklong-fighting-as-military-tries-to-repel-rebels\/","title":{"rendered":"Congo says 773 dead in weeklong fighting as military tries to repel rebels"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOMA, \u2014 At least 773 people were killed in eastern Congo\u2019s largest city of Goma and its vicinity this week amid fighting with allegedly Rwanda-backed rebels who captured the city<\/span> in a major escalation of a decade-long conflict, Congolese authorities said Saturday. The rebels\u2019 advance into other areas was slowed by a weakened military that recovered some villages from them.<\/p>\n

Authorities confirmed 773 bodies and 2,880 injured persons in Goma\u2019s morgues and hospitals, Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told a briefing in the capital, Kinshasa, adding that the death toll could be higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese figures remain provisional because the rebels asked the population to clean the streets of Goma. There should be mass graves and the Rwandans took care to evacuate theirs,\u201d said Muyaya.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Goma residents were returning to the city on Saturday after the rebels promised to restore basic services including water and power supply. They cleaned up the neighborhoods littered with debris from weapons and filled with the stench of blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m tired and don\u2019t know which way to go. On every corner (there) is a mourner,\u201d said Jean Marcus, 25, one of whose relatives was among those killed in the fighting.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

M23<\/span>\u00a0is the most potent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control in\u00a0Congo\u2019s mineral-rich east<\/span>, which holds vast deposits critical to much of the world\u2019s technology. They are backed by around 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts,\u00a0far more than in 2012<\/span>, when they first captured Goma and held it for days in a conflict driven by ethnic grievances.<\/p>\n

As the fighting raged on<\/span>\u00a0with the M23 rebels Saturday, the Congolese army recaptured the villages of Sanzi, Muganzo and Mukwidja in South Kivu\u2019s Kalehe territory, which had fallen to the rebels earlier this week, according to two civil society officials. who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity over fear for their safety.<\/p>\n

The central African nation\u2019s military has been weakened after it lost hundreds of troops and foreign mercenaries surrendered to the rebels after the fall of Goma.<\/p>\n

U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, meanwhile, said Friday that the M23 and Rwandan forces were about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of South Kivu\u2019s provincial capital of Bukavu, covering almost the same distance in the previous two days since they started advancing along Lake Kivu on the border with Rwanda. Lacroix said the rebels \u201cseem to be moving quite fast,\u201d and capturing an airport a few kilometers (miles) away \u201cwould be another really significant step.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seizure of Goma resulted in a dire humanitarian crisis, the U.N. and aid group have said. Goma serves as a humanitarian hub critical for many of the 6 million people displaced by the conflict in eastern Congo. The rebels said they will march all the way to Congo\u2019s capital Kinshasa, 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west.<\/p>\n

U.N. spokesman St\u00e9phane Dujarric also told a briefing Friday that the World Health Organization and its partners conducted an assessment with Congo\u2019s government between Jan. 26-30, and reported that 700 people have been killed and 2,800 injured in Goma and the vicinity. Dujarric confirmed to AP that the deaths occurred during those days.<\/p>\n

Source: AP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOMA, \u2014 At least 773 people were killed in eastern Congo\u2019s largest city of Goma and its vicinity this week amid fighting with allegedly Rwanda-backed rebels who captured the city in a major escalation of a decade-long conflict, Congolese authorities said Saturday. The rebels\u2019 advance into other areas was slowed by a weakened military that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":435378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-435377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435379,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435377\/revisions\/435379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}