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Visuals by Guerchom Ndebo
Text by Ruth Maclean and Caleb Kabanda
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo Jan. 27, 2025
They poured out of the countryside and into the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s east.
M23 rebels, backed by Congo’s neighbor Rwanda, were attacking. Goma was under siege. But bombs were falling to the north and west. People had nowhere to go but the city.
They were caught in a trap.
Early on Monday morning, M23 announced it had captured Goma.
By then, thousands of people had sought refuge in the city.
Many had already been displaced by fighting and were fleeing tents in sprawling camps on Goma’s outskirts.
The conflict in eastern Congo, which lately has pitted Rwandan-backed rebels against the Congolese armed forces and allied armed groups known locally as Wazalendo, has been going on for decades.
Some have called it Africa’s World War.
Eastern Congo is rich in rare minerals. U.N. experts say Rwanda finances and directs M23, which occupied Goma before, in 2012, withdrawing after international pressure on Rwanda. U.N. peacekeepers remained in the area. Rwanda denies backing M23.
On Monday, terrified residents of Goma shared videos of rebels in the city. M23 calls the advance a “liberation.”
Some Congolese officers abandoned their vehicles and fled. Gunfire erupting around Goma suggested that other soldiers stayed to fight.
United Nations peacekeeping forces near Goma on Friday.
Congolese forces west of Goma on Friday.
On Thursday, more than 100 people arrived at a hospital in Goma run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, many of them injured by heavy artillery.
Under normal circumstances, that’s a whole month’s worth of patients for the hospital. Employees had to put up tents in the yard to accommodate them all.
Giselle Nsimire, 29, fled from the town of Saké with her family when she saw soldiers leaving on Thursday.
When they reached an army checkpoint, a bomb exploded, leaving her with severe wounds. Two of her sisters were injured as well.
They had found refuge and care in a hospital, but they had no idea what they would do next.
Gérard and Charité, Wazalendo soldiers who were wounded during clashes with M23, getting rehabilitation at a Goma hospital.
On Sunday, the streets of Goma buzzed with motorcycles and were consumed by panic.
Asifiwe Iragi Rugesha tried to navigate her six children through the crowds of fellow dispaced people. They had fled bombing in Kibati that morning. But with M23 closing in on Goma, they had hardly fled to a place of safety.
Still, it was the only option, Ms. Rugesha said.
“There is nothing else to do,” she said. “If M23 comes to Goma, we will die.”
Over the weekend, the U.N. tried to evacuate its nonessential personnel from the city.
But then, on Sunday, the airport was closed.
In Goma, anger was directed at MONUSCO, as the 25-year-old U.N. peacekeeping force is known.
“They have betrayed the Congolese people,” said Patrick Amani, a motorcycle taxi driver.
As the rebels approached Goma, those who could hid at home. Many had no home, or friends, to go to.
One displaced woman, Sifa Kigugo, clutched her newborn baby.
“I don’t know where to go,” she said.
The wounded lay in their hospital beds in the dark. Goma’s power and water supplies had been cut.
Gunshots rang out. The rebels were closing in.
People displaced from Saké, where they were injured by shrapnel bombs, at the Ndosho hospital in Goma.
