Congo - Ceasefire Holding, But for How Long

by Michael Bear · 2008-10-30 15:10:00 UTC
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[Tension and looting within Goma - Footage from the AP]

The ceasefire declared by rebel commander Laurent Nkunda for the most part held Wednesday night.

According to Lt. Col. Samba Tall of the UN peacekeeping force: "Today there has been no fighting.  All belligerents are abiding by the cease-fire."

Yet it's unclear how long the ceasefire will last, especially as Nkunda recently reiterated his threat to take the city: "We will go into Goma if there is no ceasefire, no security and no advance in the peace process."

Within Goma itself, retreating Congolese soldiers turned on civilians last night, with one UN spokesman accusing the soldiers of "running amok".

One Congolese aid worker described the chaos:

It has been a very hard. The fighting was all night long with AK-47 guns between gunmen and soldiers from the national army. This morning when I went out I even collected some bullets in my compound.

There were also a lot of armed men taking advantage of the chaos, going around looting and forcing people to give them any money they had or their mobile phones. It is difficult to say who they were - if they were soldiers or not - maybe they were just bandits.

Seven people were shot last night not far from where I live. A person I know told me that he had witnessed an incident at a compound where there are sex workers living. The gunmen came wanting to be friends with the ladies; they didn't want to pay to have sex. But the ladies kept refusing and so the men shot some of them in revenge.

(For more first-hand accounts from Goma, see the excellent blog by staff from Virunga National Park.)

As far as the humanitarian situation, the World Food Program was able to resume food distributions within the city yesterday, but was "unable to move any food at all outside Goma given the intensity of the fighting."

Overall, one aid agency estimates that the past two months of fighting might have displaced as many as 400,000 people.

(For instance, the population of Kibati displaced person camp tripled over just the last few days, to 45,000 people.)

Nkunda has sent a letter to the UN saying that he would open a "humanitarian corridor" to allow aid to reach civilians trapped by the fighting, but it's unclear whether any action has been taken.

Michael Bear
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