M23 rebels battling DRC army approach Goma city after seizing Sake town

Panic has spread in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) main city, with M23 rebels steadily inching closer to Goma and seizing a nearby town as they battle the Congolese army.

Bombs were heard going off in the city's distant outskirts on Thursday and hundreds of wounded civilians were brought in to the main hospital from the area of the fighting.

The rebel group has advanced significantly in recent weeks, closing in on Goma, which has around 2 million people and is a regional hub for security and humanitarian efforts.

On Thursday, the rebels took Sake, a town only 27 kilometres from Goma and one of the last main routes into the provincial capital still under government control, according to the UN chief.

M23 is one of about 120 armed groups that have been vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern DRC, along the border with Rwanda, in a decades-long conflict that has created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

More than 7 million people have been displaced by the fighting. Earlier this month, M23 captured the towns of Minova, Katale and Masisi, west of Goma.

"The people of Goma have suffered greatly, like other Congolese," an M23 spokesperson, Lawrence Kanyuka, said on X. "M23 is on its way to liberate them, and they must prepare to welcome this liberation."

As news of fighting spread, schools in Goma sent students home on Thursday morning.

"We are told that the enemy wants to enter the city. That's why we are told to go home," Hassan Kambale, a 19-year-old high school student, said. "We are constantly waiting for the bombs."

Rwanda rejects DRC's claim

Kinshasa, the United States and UN experts accuse Rwanda of backing the M23, mainly composed of ethnic Tutsis who broke away from the army over a decade ago.

Rwanda's government denies the claim but last year admitted that it has troops and missile systems in eastern DRC to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of DRC's forces near the border. UN experts estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in eastern DRC.

On Wednesday, DRC's Minister of Communication, Patrick Muyaya, told French broadcaster France 24 that war with Rwanda is an "option to consider."

Late on Thursday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned "in the strongest terms, the renewed offensive launched by the 23 March Movement (M23)," including the "seizure of Sake."

"This offensive has a devastating toll on the civilian population and heightened the risk of a broader regional war," Guterres' statement read. He also urged "all parties to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law."

'We escaped, but unfortunately' others did not

The US Embassy in DRC's capital, Kinshasa, in a notice warned of "an increase in the severity of armed conflict near Sake" and advised US nationals in North Kivu province, which includes Goma, to be on the alert in case they need to leave their homes on short notice.

The United Kingdom also issued a travel advisory that said M23 now controls Sake and urged British nationals to leave Goma while roads remain open.

Many Sake residents have joined the more than 178,000 people who have fled the M23 advance in the last two weeks.

The CBCA Ndosho Hospital in Goma was stretched to the limit, with hundreds of newly wounded on Thursday.

Thousands escaped the fighting by boat on Wednesday, making their way north across Lake Kivu and spilling out of packed wooden boats in Goma, some with bundles of their belongings strapped around their foreheads.

Neema Matondo said she fled Sake during the night, when the first explosions started to go off. She recounted seeing people around her torn to pieces and killed.

"We escaped, but unfortunately" others did not, Matondo told the AP news agency.

Mariam Nasibu, who fled Sake with her three children, was in tears — one of her children lost a leg, blown off in the relentless shelling.

"As I continued to flee, another bomb fell in front of me, hitting my child," she said, crying.

No obstacles towards Goma

M23 militants early this month had already captured Masisi, the administrative capital of Masisi territory in North Kivu province which lies around 80 km northwest of Goma and has around 40,000 inhabitants.

The closest fighting to Goma is around 10 km away.

The armed group has occupied the hills around Goma for almost two years and threatens to choke the city's economy by taking the port of Minova in the west.

The FARDC and militias backing the army have established defensive lines around the city.

But observers doubt these forces could offer real resistance in the event of an offensive.

A UN peacekeeping force known as MONUSCO has a base in Goma but it is unclear how it will react if the city falls.

In December, a meeting between DRC's President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, as part of an Angola-led peace process, was cancelled due to lack of agreement.

At this stage, "nothing prevents the M23 and Rwanda from trying to take Goma," Reagan Miviri, a researcher at the Congolese Ebuteli in stitute, told the AFP news agency.

"The Luanda process is no longer there, the American pressure is no longer there. Rwanda has nothing to fear, it seems to accept this aggression," he said.

On Thursday Kagame was in Ankara, where the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered his country's support "necessary to resolve this issue which will contribute to stability and peace in the Great Lakes Region, should both parties wish for it."

Some observers also fear Donald Trump's return to the White House might impact Rwandan attitudes. Kagame recently said he was "certain" that "many things, even on the geopolitical level, will change... in particular those linked to the east of the DRC".

Eastern DRC has vast mining resources and is a complex landscape of rival armed militias which has seen violence ebb and flow since regional wars in the 1990s.

The M23 was formed in 2012 from a mutiny within the army of former militants of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNPD), a DRC's political-military movement with a Tutsi majority that is now inactive.

It had already taken control of Goma by the end of November 2012.

But 11 days later, the DRC's army had retaken the city with the support of the UN mission in the DRC and diplomatic pressure from the international community on Rwanda.

At the end of 2013, the FARDC had driven the armed group out of the last positions it occupied in the mountains of North Kivu.

The M23 resurfaced at the end of 2021 and the DRC's army has rarely recovered territory lost in recent months.