“The situation in Goma is serious. We fear widespread insecurity in the East of the DRC” – Africa Links 24

“The situation in Goma and its surroundings is worsening daycom,” said Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, metropolitan archbishop of Kinshasa, in reference to the capital of North Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where, since 2021, the M23 guerrilla has taken up arms, conquering several localities.

The M23 continues to conquer territories as the Congolese army is in a state of total confusion,” the Cardinal says. “What we fear most is the risk of widespread insecurity first in Goma and more generally throughout the East of the country”.

“Indeed, the government has distributed additional weapons to various armed groups, like the Wazalendo, but also to some belonging to the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a group founded in the early 2000s by survivors of the former Hutu Rwandan regime), hoping that these groups would support the army against the advances of the M23. All these groups are now well-armed, and it is the population that is paying the price, generating a risk of widespread insecurity”, emphasizes Cardinal Ambongo.

The term “Wazalendo” (“patriots” in Swahili) refers to a group of armed groups that have taken up arms to defend the population against the M23.

However, its instigator Ephraim Bisimwa, leader of a local messianic sect, was sentenced to death last October for the serious incidents of August 30, 2023, against the presence of MONUSCO, the UN Mission in the DRC, in Goma, which resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people.

“With the arrest and death sentence of the instigator of the Wazalendo, it has become clear that this group is not homogeneous; even some of its members have switched to the ranks of the M23. It is difficult to control these armed groups that refer to so many leaders,” says Cardinal Ambongo, who believes that the Congolese government has heavy responsibilities in the management of the crisis in the east of the country.

“Instead of strengthening the regular army with selected and well-trained soldiers, the government has made the dangerous choice, in our opinion, to arm these groups that end up becoming a danger to the population, by attacking citizens, committing thefts and murders, and engaging in the illegal trade of minerals extracted from the region’s artisanal mines”, he adds.

“The bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Bukavu have made a very clear analysis of the reality experienced in the east of the DRC,” continued the Cardinal, referring to the pastoral note published in mid-April (see Fides 17/4/2024).

“The Church itself is in a dangerous situation in this region,” he emphasizes. “That is why the bishops of the Province of Bukavu, like all of us at the national level of the CENCO (National Episcopal Conference of Congo), have chosen to accompany the population in this difficult time. The sense of our pastoral care for a suffering people is to ask ourselves “how can we show a little of the love and mercy of God” to this suffering people? That is what the Church tries to do, but it is not always easy,” he concludes.