BBC visits D -C Congo City under rebel control

When I first entered the eastern city of Goma of D -C Congo, it was difficult for me to say that I was in a conflict area.

Goma residents filled the streets a few miles from the border with Rwanda – traveling traveling, heading for work, Hokers was selling goods along the road, and taxi drivers collided to win customers.

But it only took a few minutes to notice that there is a new “government” in the city.

When I reached a checkpoint near a police office, previously driven by Congoy authorities, fighters with a gun from the rebellious M23 stopped my car.

Last week, the M23 captured Goma, an east city of nearly two million people, after lighting in the Eastern region of D -Congo.

At least 700 people in the city were killed and nearly 3,000 injured, while the rebels were confronted with the army of D -C Congo and his allies, according to the UN and Congoa government.

M23, which is made up of ethnic tuta, say they are fighting for minority rights while the Government of D -Kongo says Supported by Rwanda rebels They are looking for control over the huge mineral wealth of the Eastern region.

At the M23 checkpoint, the rebels peered into my car, I asked my driver a few brief questions, and then they waved us in the devastated city.

The rebels did not encounter opposition – as if they were always there.

I made myself to one of several hospitals treating the wounded victims, and when I entered, shouts of pain echoed through the corridors.

I met Nathaniel Gypter, a doctor who, in a strange turning of the role, sat in a hospital bed with a slingshot around his left hand.

The bomb landed on the house next to him and G -n Circho, and his neighbors were struck by the resulting shrapnel.

“I was injured in my hand. A 65-year-old man was injured on his belly. He did not survive after surgery,” he said.

Several wards, an elderly woman lay in another hospital bed hung to an oxygen tank.

She had pulled a bullet out of her own hand after a fierce exchanging fire broke out in her neighborhood.

“Suddenly my hand felt cold and I realized I was shot,” she said, struggling to find her speech.

For days she had breastfed the firearm wound without help. She told me that she was eventually accompanied by a public hospital by M23 fighters.

The woman asked to be moved to a private hospital where she is now receiving treatment as she does not receive adequate attention from rearranged doctors.

But even in this second hospital, medicines were buried as an increasingly large number of patients passed through the doors.

“We have treated most of them because we had plans for emergencies,” said a doctor who did not want to be baptized for security reasons.

He added: “On Sunday, when the fighting started, we received 315 patients and we treated them.”

But now the hospital counts over 700 patients with different degrees of injury, my doctor told me.

He talks about receiving patients with “firearms in the head, others on the chest, stomach, arms and legs”.

As the Eastern Congo is directed to political anxiety, the UN service of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that sexual abuse is used as a weapon of war by rival parties.

The doctor at this private hospital confirmed the UN statement, saying that so far its facility has received about 10 casualties of rape and violence based on gender.

Outside the hospital and downtown there was a mix of calm and circumvention.

People passed four vans with destroyed bullets, witnessing what played when they were sheltered for safety.

Although the shooting and explosions in Goma are all, but they have not disappeared, not all establishments return to business as normal. Several stores have opened on certain streets, but not in others. The main banks also remain closed.

Some may remain cautious that everything can happen against the background of the variable security situation in the width province of North Kivu.

“People are afraid … I’m still afraid because those who have caused the tension are still with us and we don’t know what’s going on,” said the store owner Sami Matabishi.

“But the bad thing is that there are no people to buy from us, many have gone to Rwanda, (Congoan city) Bukavu, Kenya and Uganda.”

He adds that traders importing goods from neighboring countries have failed to transport products to the city.

Many residents I talked to said they had put up with the M23 governing the place.

And as an outsider, I saw that the rebels intend to uphold their control.

They had taken the office of the North Kivu’s military governor who They had killed as they progressed to GomaS

The fighters were also present in strategic areas around the city, while others patrolled the streets of pickups, weapons in their hand.

I was in Goma all the time, I did not see any active Congoy soldier.

However, I saw abandoned trucks decorated with “Fardc”, the French acronym for the Armed Forces of the DRC.

Near the base of the UN peacekeeping mission (Monusco) – which tasked tasks to protect civilians from rebels – military fatigues, magazines and bullets were scattered along the way.

“When the M23 arrived here, they surrounded our army,” I told me Richard Ali, who lives nearby.

“Many removed their military uniforms, threw away their weapons, and wore civilian clothes. Others escaped.”

As the M23 enjoys a great conquest, the Congoal government continues to refute the rebel’s claim that they have completely captured Goma.

Authorities have accused M23 of the illegal occupation of their land – with the support of Rwanda – and promises to restore any lost territory.

Although Rwanda has consistently refused to support the rebels, his answer moved to a more protection, in which the government spokesmen said the battle near his border was a threat to security.

It is now reported that the rebels are moving south to Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, and vowed to reach the capital Kinshasa.

So far, Goma remains their largest coup. The conditions there predict what life can emerge for many more Congoan people if the M23 gained more reason.

Additional reporting by Robert Kiptu from the BBC and Hassan Lali in Goma