Bodies found in streets as Congo rebels target key city

Battles between Rwanda-backed rebels and pro-government forces are intensifying in the Congo city of Goma, as heavy gunfire and explosions were heard, and dead bodies were found in the streets.

- ALEX CROFT

Health workers have been shot at and patients, including babies, have been caught in the crossfire, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, as hospitals in the city were overwhelmed by hundreds of people with gunshot, mortar and shrapnel wounds.

Tens of thousands of residents in eastern Congo’s largest city fled their homes after the rebels made swift gains in the North Kivu province bordering Rwanda, in the conflict’s largest escalation since 2012 – when the M23 rebel group last occupied Goma.

“Hospitals are overwhelmed. There are currently hundreds of people in hospital, most admitted with gunshot wounds,” said Adelheid Marschang, WHO’s emergency response coordinator for the DR Congo.

Angry crowds attacked a number of embassies in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, as protesters criticised the alleged complicity of foreign actors in Rwanda’s attack on eastern Congo yesterday.

The Rwandan embassy was targeted by protestors, along with the French, US Ugandan, Kenyan, Belgian and Dutch embassies. Those protesting had teargas fired at them by police as they burned tyres while chanting anti-Rwandan slogans and attacked the embassies of countries seen as favourable to Rwanda.