MARKETS OPEN IN GOMA
While the fighting has largely stopped in Goma, AFP reporters said there were still serious shortages of cash and fuel. Congo’s authorities have been reluctant to prioritise supplying the city, which is largely under M23’s control.
In the areas it has seized, the armed group has started setting up a parallel administration.
Markets opened in central Goma on Saturday, the traders setting up stalls and women carrying bundles of cassava leaves on their shoulders.
Multiple diplomatic efforts have emerged aiming to prevent the crisis from escalating.
On Friday, southern African leaders pledged “unwavering” support to the DRC after holding an emergency summit in Zimbabwe.
African Union chair Moussa Faki Mahamat welcomed the summit’s call for a joint summit of southern African bloc SADC and the eight-country East African Community (EAC).
In a region already home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, the latest fighting has forced another 500,000 people to flee their homes, said the UN, which has also reported summary executions carried out by the M23 fighters and rapes by Congolese troops.
