Artillery shelling kills at least 14 in Congo refugee camp

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At least 14 people, including several children, have been killed by an artillery shell that crashed into a tent camp for thousands of displaced people in eastern Congo as fighting moves closer to the biggest city in the region.

Relief workers pulled out of the camp on the edge of Goma after the explosion, but some were blocked by protests from desperate people in the camp. Some humanitarian agencies say the artillery attack is forcing them to halt their operations at the site.

Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said on Friday that he was cutting short a European trip to return home because of the artillery attack. He has accused Rwanda of using a proxy militia force to invade his country and plunder it of minerals.

At least 700,000 people have sought shelter in makeshift camps in squalid conditions around Goma over the past two years, fleeing an offensive by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel militia that has created one of the world’s biggest displacement crises. Rwanda has sent its own troops across the border to support the offensive, according to the United States and France.

This week, M23 captured the town of Rubaya, one of the biggest hubs for mining sites that produce coltan, a key mineral in smartphone manufacturing. The assault on Rubaya reportedly left many civilians dead.

After the artillery attack at the Goma camp, videos on social media showed horrific scenes of maimed bodies, injured victims being carried to hospital on motorcycles, and a child screaming for its dead mother. As many as 20 to 30 people may have been killed and dozens injured, according to local reports.

The M23 rebels denied they had launched the artillery attack. But the Congolese government and local media said M23 was responsible. The militia has artillery positions within 20 kilometres of Goma, near the town of Sake, making the situation increasingly dangerous as displaced people move into camps between Goma and Sake.

A relief agency source, whom The Globe and Mail is not identifying because the person is not authorized to speak to the media, said the Congolese army has set up its own artillery positions inside the camps. After the army fired shells at M23 on Friday morning, M23 fired back with artillery that hit the camp, the source said.

A political group affiliated with M23, called the Congo River Alliance, blamed the Congolese army for the attack and accused it of using civilians as “human shields” by setting up artillery positions in a populated area.

The camps around Goma, which have expanded by about 200,000 people since February, are suffering a shortage of clean drinking water and other supplies, triggering outbreaks of cholera and malnutrition. Sexual violence has become common as women from the camps venture out to seek firewood or food in nearby areas. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said the increasing use of heavy artillery around the camps is having tragic consequences for the displaced people who are trapped in the crossfire.

In a statement on Friday, it said the intensity of the heavy weapon fire had forced it to make the difficult decision to suspend its aid operations in the camp.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese physician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, urged governments to suspend all military assistance to Rwanda until it withdraws its troops from Congo and ends its support to M23.

“There is an urgent need to put an end to recurrent aggression and Rwandan interference in the DRC, and to move on from empty words and perfunctory condemnations to the adoption of strong political and economic sanctions,” he said in a social media post on Friday.

The governments of France and the United States have called on Rwanda to withdraw its troops and halt its support for the rebel militia. “M23, with the full support of the Rwandan government and backed by Rwandan Defense Forces, has further expanded into key areas of the DRC and is poised to take over more at any time,” U.S. diplomat Robert Wood told the United Nations Security Council last week.

Humanitarian agencies are trying to raise US$2.6-billion for the Congo crisis, but have only raised 16 per cent of the target so far this year. Resources have been scarce, partly because of funds diverted to the Gaza and Ukraine crises.