Congo

January 29, 2025 3:50 PM

Congo’s M23 rebels consolidate control over a devastated Goma

The United States told Rwanda it was "deeply troubled" by the fall of Goma in eastern Congo to Rwandan-backed M23 rebels, who appeared on Wednesday to have consolidated control over the city of nearly 2 million in just two days. Isolated bursts of gunfire sounded through some outlying districts of the lakeside city, where Monday's rebel storming left bodies lying in the streets, hospitals overwhelmed and U.N. peacekeepers sheltering in their bases. The rebels seized the city's international ai...

January 28, 2025 4:33 PM

Congo rebels face some resistance in Goma, more peacekeepers killed

Gunfire rippled across east Congo's largest city Goma where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels still faced pockets of resistance from army and pro-government militias on Tuesday, while another four South African peacekeepers were killed. Many dead bodies lay in the streets and hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties, a U.N. official said. The rebels marched into the lakeside city of two million people on Monday in the worst escalation since 2012 of a three-decade conflict rooted in the Rwandan genoc...

January 28, 2025 12:17 PM

UN peacekeeping chief thanks India, other troop contributors following deadly Congo operation

UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, has expressed his gratitude to India and other nations contributing troops to the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), following the deaths of three peacekeepers last week. All 1,114 Indian troops and 160 police personnel deployed in the region were reported safe after two South African and one Uruguayan peacekeepers were killed by the M23 rebel group, which has seized control of parts of the mineral-rich eas...

January 27, 2025 2:28 PM

Rebels enter centre of Congo’s Goma after claiming capture of city

Congolese M23 rebels entered the centre of the eastern city of Goma on Monday, two witnesses said, hours after they claimed to have seized the city despite the United Nations Security Council demanding an end to the offensive. It wasn't immediately clear if the Rwanda-backed rebel alliance had captured the whole of the lakeside city. At the airport, elements of the army and U.N. peacekeepers remained, residents, a local official and a United Nations source said. The rebel's recent advance has ...

December 13, 2024 4:27 PM

Congo to get Japan’s mpox vaccine for children from next week, Africa CDC says

Democratic Republic of Congo should start to receive three million doses of mpox vaccine from Japan next week that can be used on children, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday. Vaccinations against the potentially deadly infection are under way in Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, but there have been no shots available for children, who are particularly vulnerable to mpox. Japan pledged in September to donate doses from its national stockpile...

October 10, 2024 3:19 PM

Countries donate mpox vaccines to combat outbreak in Africa

Some countries have pledged to donate doses of mpox vaccines to combat an outbreak of the disease in Africa after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global public health emergency in August for the second time in two years. Such donations are meant to address the huge inequity that left African nations with no access to the shots used during the global outbreak in 2022. The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the current outbreak, launched its first mpox vaccination c...