Latest Goma Stories

Park officials in East Congo said on Monday that conflict has put more than a quarter of the world's last mountain gorillas at the mercy of armed groups who hunt and camp in their territory.  The gorillas now face even greater extinction because no rangers are left to protect or care for them.Recent conflicts between Tutsi rebels and the government army and militia allies have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, which is home to...

Overstretched United Nations peacekeepers say they are taking advantage of a cease-fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo to aid starving refugees. The U.N. aid workers' most pressing concern is getting help to residents trapped behind the lines of the advance of Tutsi rebel chief Gen. Laurent Nkunda on the eastern Congo regional capital of Goma, the Times of London reported Monday. Tens of thousands of refugees who had been encamped near Rutshuru disappeared into the forests after being...

A humanitarian disaster is looming in the Democratic Republic of Congo as Tutsi rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda approaches Goma, observers say. Nkunda has ordered a cease-fire in his advance on the city to establish a "humanitarian corridor" allowing some of the 500,000 refugees who have fled Goma, an eastern Congo provincial capital, to return home. But United Nations aid workers say retreating government soldiers are looting, killing and raping civilians and a larger bloodbath is...

Humanitarian officials say they're worried whether 50,000 refugees forced to flee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo can survive long in the bush. United Nations officials said the refugees ran off as forces loyal to renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda advanced toward the eastern Congo regional capital of Goma. They said the camps in Rutshuru, north of Goma, had been forcibly emptied, looted and then burned to the ground, the BBC said. "There are some 50,000 people who were in those camps,"...

Humanitarian officials they're worried whether 50,000 refugees forced to flee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo can survive long in the bush. United Nations officials said the refugees ran off as forces loyal to renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda advanced toward the eastern Congo regional capital of Goma. They said the camps in Rutshuru, north of Goma, had been forcibly emptied, looted and then burned to the ground, the BBC said. "There are some 50,000 people who were in those...

The rebel forces of Gen. Laurent Nkunda sat outside Goma as a cease-fire remained in place Friday in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His troops were camped about 10 miles from the city, the capital of East Kivu province, while government soldiers remained in Goma, The Daily Telegraph reported. While the fighting has been halted at least temporarily, toll of dead and displaced is high. The presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, have agreed...

Rebels have reached the gates of Goma, the provincial capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a new threat of war flared, officials said Thursday. The escalation of the long-simmering conflict sent tens of thousands of frantic villagers fleeing while government soldiers left their posts and Congolese military commanders reportedly abandoned their troops despite the presence of 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the region, The Washington Post reported. In the past decade, two civil wars...

Text of report by Rwandan news agency RNA Kigali, 15 July: As conservationists in Virunga park struggle to protect the forests that are home to the much prized gorillas, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda [FDLR] Rwandan- backed rebels in DRCongo also want to make charcoal from cutting down the trees, as a recent encounter revealed. Conservationists with organizations such as Wildlife Direct report that the park's dense forest is rapidly being depleted of its trees to satisfy...

Excerpt from report entitled "Nord Kivu: Cholera prevails in various health zones" published by DRCongo's UN-sponsored Radio Okapi website on 13 June Some 120 cholera cases, including six deaths were recorded between 21 May and today in various health zones, the provincial health inspection office said during an epidemiological meeting in Goma on Thursday [12 June]. Displaced persons are the most affected by the epidemic. [Passage omitted] Originally published by Radio Okapi website,...

By Eva Gilliam SAKE, Congo (Reuters) - Thousands of people fled clashes between troops loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army on Saturday in which two government soldiers were killed, officials said. The gun battle in the eastern town of Sake also left 18 civilians wounded as well as 17 government soldiers and at least two soldiers from Nkunda's brigade, U.N. officials said. Fleeing the fighting, women carrying children on their backs and men bearing suitcases...