Sawt Falasteen - Fighting rages in DRC's Goma after militia, Rwandan troops enter city

There were conflicting accounts over how much of Goma remained under Congolese control after the M23 armed group and Rwandan soldiers entered the city's centre on Sunday night.

"We are in our beds because we are afraid," Goma resident Lucie told AFP by telephone.

"We can hear the shooting outside our homes, we cannot leave."

The M23 resurfaced in late 2021 after years of dormancy and began seizing large swathes of mineral-rich North Kivu province but fighting with the Congolese army has intensified since early this year.

Internal and cross-border violence has mired eastern DRC for three decades and Goma, the provincial capital and home to more than a million people also hosts nearly as many displaced.

Amid mounting international concern, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot expressed his country's solidarity with the Democratic Republic of Congo "as Goma prepares to fall".

The latest fighting has intensified a humanitarian crisis, displacing more than 400,000 people since the start of the year, and raised fears of sparking a regional war, the UN has warned.

The DRC government said it "continues to work to avoid carnage and the loss of human life" in Goma, spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on X.

In a statement on Sunday night, the M23 claimed it was a "glorious day marking the liberation for the city of Goma," issuing an ultimatum to Congolese soldiers to hand over their weapons.

- Crisis summit -

M23 fighters and more than 3,500 Rwandan soldiers entered Goma overnight after weeks of advancing on the city, according to the United Nations and security sources.

Repeated explosions from heavy artillery and intense bursts of gunfire were heard across central Goma throughout Monday, AFP correspondents said.

Kenyan President William Ruto said Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame would attend a crisis summit on Wednesday.

The African Union's Peace and Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday over the escalating crisis.

The DRC and Rwanda have had fraught relations for decades, further strained in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Kinshasa has accused Kigali of wanting to get hold of the region's mineral wealth, including gold -- an accusation that Rwanda denies.

- Five civilian deaths -

As the city descended into chaos, a mass jailbreak from a torched prison resulted in "deaths" on Monday, a security source told AFP, without giving further details.

In parts of the city, M23 fighters were reportedly welcomed by celebrating locals, AFP correspondents said.

Some Congolese units had begun to surrender by handing over their weapons to peacekeepers in Goma, according to Uruguay's army which provides soldiers to the UN force in the DRC, known as MONUSCO.

Exchanges of fire took place between Congolese and Rwandan troops on either side of a border crossing near Goma, a diplomatic source told AFP.

Five civilians were killed and 25 seriously wounded on the outskirts of Rwandan border town Gisenyi, Rwanda's army told AFP on Monday.

An AFP journalist in Gisenyi reported "several detonations" on the Rwandan side.

The border between Rwanda and the DRC near Goma was also closed on Monday, a European consulate source told AFP.

Rwandan state media earlier said that buses were ready to evacuate UN staff and their families from Goma over the border.

- 'Declaration of war' -

Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said the arrival of Rwandan soldiers to reinforce the M23 in Goma on Sunday was "a declaration of war".

Addressing an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Sunday, she urged the United Nations to impose sanctions on Rwanda.

The Security Council called for the withdrawal of aggressive "external forces" but stopped short of explicitly naming them.

Rwanda has rejected calls to withdraw.

The fighting near the border poses "a serious threat" and "necessitates Rwanda's sustained defensive posture", Rwanda's foreign ministry said.

Thirteen foreign peacekeepers have been killed in the escalating clashes.

Both the DRC and Rwanda have withdrawn their diplomats from each other's capitals in a breakdown of relations.

A UN experts' report said Rwanda was using the M23 to secure access to the DRC's mineral wealth, exporting it abroad for its own gain.

Kayikwamba called on the UN Security Council to impose a "total embargo on the export of all minerals labelled as Rwandan, in particular gold".

The mostly Tutsi M23, or March 23 Movement, briefly occupied Goma at the end of 2012 and was defeated by DRC forces and the UN in 2013.

Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have already been declared and broken in the region. The last ceasefire was signed at the end of July.

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J.Saleh--SF-PST