The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who seized the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo last week have declared a unilateral ceasefire starting on Tuesday.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of militias including M23, said it was declaring the ceasefire “for humanitarian reasons”. Flows of aid, food and other basic goods into the city were all but cut off by the M23 advance, and in recent days humanitarian organisations and the international community have stepped up calls for the creation of safe corridors to get vital items in.
On Monday the UN said at least 900 people had died in last week’s fighting between the rebels and Congolese forces. It added that warehouses and offices belonging to aid organisations had been looted, and warned of the spread of mpox, cholera, measles and other diseases due to lack of access to medical care.
Goma, a city of 2 million people and a humanitarian hub for displaced people, is at the heart of a region with trillions of dollars in mineral wealth. During the M23 takeover hospitals were overwhelmed by people injured in the fighting, and dead bodies lay in the streets for days. About 300,000 internally displaced people were forced to flee camps on the city’s outskirts.
The M23 rebels are backed by 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts, far more than in 2012 when they first briefly captured Goma then withdrew after international pressure.
M23 is the latest in a string of ethnic Tutsi-led insurgent groups that have operated in mineral-rich eastern DRC since a 2003 deal was meant to end wars that had killed 6 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
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