East Congo rebels continue advance despite Church talks

Catholic and Protestant leaders met rebel authorities in Goma on 13 February and asked them to open the city’s airport to allow access for humanitarian aid and to declare a ceasefire. 

Days after Catholic and Protestant church representatives met rebel leaders in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, rebel forces captured the city of Bukavu, capital of neighbouring South Kivu.

The city fell to troops of the Rwanda-backed M23 Movement without resistance on Saturday as African leaders met in Addis Ababa for the thirty-eighth African Union Summit, where they made strong calls for a ceasefire and the disarming of the rebels.

Images from the city of civilians embracing the rebel soldiers and giving them water indicated that the conflict had reached new levels. The rebels – having declared a ceasefire days earlier – promised to reach the Congolese capital Kinshasa and topple President Felix Tshisekendi’s government.

The M23 captured Goma last month, and its political wing the Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo, AFC) have installed a governing authority in the city. At least 3,000 people died in the fighting and one million civilians have been displaced by the offensive and the destruction of humanitarian facilities.

Leaders from the National Episcopal Conference of Congo and the DR Congo’s main Protestant church, the Church of Christ in Congo, met rebel authorities in Goma on 13 February and asked them to open the city’s airport to allow access for humanitarian aid and to declare a ceasefire. 

Meeting in the Ghanaian capital Accra, the standing committee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) asked “every diocese, parish, and religious community in Africa to unite in a triduum of prayer and fasting, each according to their local customs and facilities” on 3-5 March for peace in the DR Congo and across the continent.

In a statement published on 17 February, SECAM said that “Africa’s rich mineral deposits, truly a potential source of prosperity, have instead continued to be a source of conflict” as their value “motivates powerful nations and multinational corporations to fund armed factions in some African countries”.

It continued: “To those who persist in the scramble for the resources of Africa, we echo the words of the Holy Father Pope Francis, in his speech of January 2023 in Kinshasa, DRC: ‘Hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa, it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.’”

Aid agencies including Cafod have warned of the effects of the fighting on already-displaced people sheltering in Goma and the surrounding area. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in Goma within three weeks, and many have sought shelter in neighbouring countries. 

The Church in Angola signalled its willingness to welcome refugees from the DR Congo. Sr Carla Luísa Frei Bamberg, the executive secretary of its Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants (CEPAMI), said the Church was on alert to welcome refugees. 

“We are prepared at the borders, especially in the dioceses bordering Congo, to ensure that any arrivals are met with care and support,” she said. “Our animators in the [CEPAMI] are ready to receive these individuals not as intruders, but as brothers seeking relief from dire situations.”

Goma ‘cries to the world’ as humanitarian disaster looms

Hands off Africa!

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