After a week of fighting, rebels backed by Rwanda have wrested almost full control over Goma, a city of two million in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Hospitals are overflowing with the wounded, and the city morgue with the dead. Goma’s residents are beginning to emerge from their hiding places, desperately searching for water and food. And the Congolese military that was supposed to protect them has been vanquished.
On Thursday, in a yard outside Goma’s biggest stadium, rebels with the Rwanda-backed M23 militia loaded more than 1,000 soldiers they had captured into truck beds, where the men stood packed together. Most wore the uniforms they were captured in. Many of them were furious.
But the curses they spat were not directed at their captors; rather, at Felix Tshisekedi, the Congolese president, whom they accused of selling them out, and at the military commanders who had abandoned them. Their commanders, together with government officials, had left behind their vehicles, seen in videos and photographs, and boarded boats in the early hours of Monday morning as M23 arrived in the city, escaping across a moonlit lake while leaving their men to fight alone.
Many of the soldiers in the trucks had fought on, alongside armed groups known locally as the Wazalendo. But no reinforcements had been sent.
“Tshisekedi will pay for this,” one soldier shouted.
“We’ll capture him with our own hands,” another said.
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