Fighting between rebels and army cuts power to DRC city News
Lydie maliki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fighting between rebels and army cuts power to DRC city

The main power lines to the city of Goma, in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were cut off Monday due to an escalation of fighting between rebels and the DRC’s armed forces, leaving hospitals and water systems without power. Virunga Energies, who supplies electricity to the region, said in a statement that the power cut was because of clashes between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the March 23 Movement (M23).

M23 is a rebel military group allegedly backed by Rwanda and, according to a report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year, have been responsible for unlawful killings, rapes and other apparent war crimes since late 2022. Clashes between the FARDC and M23 have increased in recent months and moved closer to the city of Goma, which is home to over 2 million people. The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) announced on Friday that they would be launching a new operation with FARDC to stop the advance of troops towards both Goma and nearby Saké.

In their statement on Monday, Virunga Energies said that the power cuts would mean that town pumps, public lighting and hospital power would all be affected by the cuts and could cause loss of life. Since then, teams from Virunga were able to temporarily repair one of the two power lines that had been damaged, but these repairs were fragile.

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