Life after the rebel acquisition

A week after the fighting, Rwanda -backed rebels grabbed almost full control of Goma, a city consisting of millions of Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Hospitals overflow with the wounded, and the city’s morgue with the dead. Juma residents began to appear from hiding places, and to search desperately for water and food. The Congolese army, which was supposed to protect them, was defeated.

On Thursday, in a yard outside the largest Guma Stadium, the rebels with the M23 militia, backed by Rwanda, loaded more than 1,000 soldiers who seized a truck family, where men stood with each other. Most of them wore the uniform they were captured. Many of them were angry.

But the curses that spit were not addressed to their kidnappers; Instead, at Felix Tshisetedi, the Congolese President, who accused him of selling them, and in the military leaders they abandoned. He left their leaders, along with government officials, behind their cars, was seen in the videos and photographs, and they boarded the boats in the early hours of Monday morning when the M23 arrived in the city, while they were fleeing through a close lake while their men left to fight alone.

Many soldiers have fought in trucks, along with local armed groups known as Wazalendo. But no reinforcements have been sent.

“TSHISECEDI will pay for this,” a soldier shouted.

Another said: “We will pick it up with our hands.”

“God will pay him,” another shout.

The commander of the 231st Infantry Brigade of the Congolese Army – known for his French, FARDC – from the cabin of a truck, climbed him, his oldest place was comfortable. The arrested leader, Lieutenant John Esiji, explained that they have no choice but to surrender. He said that the M23 was taking them to a place to give them some training, adding that they would now do everything that their new masters led them.

He said: “If we are sent to fight FARDC, we will fight FARDC.”

While the M23 rebels wandering around the courtyard were preparing to leave the trucks, they looked like an army with their bombs, the tiredness and helmets of the missiles, while the Congolese soldiers seemed to be a tiring and tiring rebel group.

The rebels, who are already controlling vast areas of metal -rich Congo, said they are planning the car to the capital, Kinshasa, nearly a thousand miles away to the west, and take over the entire country.

The rebels had already handed over to hundreds of Roman mercenaries who were fighting alongside the Congolese forces.

Hundreds of civilians stood around trucks full of soldiers, watching this reflection of roles, and taking a good look at the men who were now responsible. Dozens of women and children were unbearable, after they monitored their husbands and fathers among men in the trucks.

“I don’t know where they took him,” Mary Seifa, who had a child on her back and three other children in clouds. She was from Vesy, 270 miles south of Goma, and she lost everything in the attack on Minova last week. They sought shelter at school, but they were unable to stay.

“The school has been chased,” said Ms. Seifa crying as if she was in mourning. “How will I stay alive? How will these children return to Vesy?”

Later on Thursday, the rebel leader, Cornell Nanga, gave the citizens of Juma the taste of their new reality under the strong militia – that Some experts say It reached 6000 soldiers in the eastern Congo, supported by up to 4000 Rwandan soldiers.

“Return to regular activities,” Mr. Nanga told Juma residents at a two -hour press conference at a local hotel. It was surrounded by men in helmets and battle equipment.

But the situation in Goma, a city built around black lava currents from a direct volcano nearby, is far from the normal rate.

The dead bodies are located in the streets. The stores, supermarkets and humanitarian agencies were looted. Cholera erupts. People with bullet wounds – those who survived – finally access to clinics for treatment, can only find a lack of medicine and surgical employees.

And many of the families that were divided because they fled did not find each other yet.

Elysée mobanda lost her two children in chaos. The rebels were holding her husband, a soldier, a prisoner. The events last week left her family in a state of ruin.

She said, “I don’t know where to go.”

Wounded, horrific, hungry, thirsty or lost, many Juma population in a very risky mode.

The most vulnerable inhabitants of the displaced Juma, which are numbers in hundreds of thousands.

More than a year ago, people escaped from the progress of the rebels across the countryside and small towns in the Eastern Congo, and the search for a shelter in and around Juma, in unhealthy unhealthy camps in particular for women and girls.

With the closure of the M23 in these camps last week, thousands of people who were almost left there fled the clashes, and carried the little that they had on their heads towards Goma, which would be overcome soon.

Three families fled from a camp directly outside Goma in Educational CenterAnd survival over some beans and rice given.

“I don’t know how we would stay,” said her 34 -year -old Kapaseli’s cliff, the youngest of 5 -month -old.

They survived this risk -framed week. But they have no idea what they will do now.

For many, the most urgent need is water. The city’s water supplies, as well as its power and Internet, were cut off during the battle for Goma, and those who managed to save some of them diminish throughout the week. Those who did not have water tried to beg from those who did, or pushed the street vendors of $ 5.20 for Jerrycan that usually cost 20 cents.

As the fighting calmed down, hundreds of people ventured at the edge of Lake Kevo to collect water, adding a little chlorine to try to maintain the diseases transmitted by water.

One of these water that was attending Thursday morning was Khayat Mocindly, 13, who carried two colored yellow gears to the beach of the lake, took off his heart, and slipped into the sparkling lake. While the fighting caught, his family ran out of water to drink.

“We were unable to leave the house due to gunshots and bombs,” he said.

He filled the cans, struggled to get them out of the lake.