War in the DRC's east: Will there be a 'push for diplomatic means to end this conflict'?

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00:00Now, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Felix Tshisekedi said that DRC troops

00:07are mounting a vigorous response to M23 rebels, who in recent days have captured vast swathes

00:12of the east of the country, including most of the key city of Goma.

00:16Tshisekedi also condemned the inaction of the international community and called on

00:21it to put pressure on Rwanda, which backs the rebels.

00:25Let's take a listen.

00:26A strong and coordinated military response against these terrorists and their allies

00:33is underway.

00:36Our valiant DRC armed forces, symbol of courage and patriotism, are fully mobilized and ready

00:42to defend every inch of our territory.

00:49I would like to directly appeal to the international community and the African Union.

00:55Rwanda continues to openly violate the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, as well as

01:01regional agreements.

01:05Your silence and your passivity in the face of the barbaric actions taken by the Kigali

01:09regime and the atrocities it committed on our soil are an insult not only to the DRC

01:16but also to universal values of justice and peace.

01:23And for more on this, we can bring in Menengi Mangundu, who is country director for Oxfam

01:27in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

01:30Good morning, Menengi, and thank you very much for joining us.

01:34More than a hundred people dead and at least a thousand wounded in the past few days in

01:38North Kivu province.

01:40What are the immediate humanitarian challenges you have been seeing?

01:45Thank you very much.

01:46We have been seeing that the communities have been cut off from water, they've been cut

01:51off from electricity, they don't have food.

01:54The business within Goma town was on standstill.

01:59Nothing was functioning.

02:00But as of today, we are seeing that people have started to come back, including some

02:05people that have also left their camps, they've started to come back to the camps.

02:10But we tried by all means to make sure that in the displaced camps where we were working,

02:16we continued with some pumping of the water to the communities, though it was really challenging

02:22when even the people that were supposed to pump the water had to go for safety.

02:27And then we have noticed as well during the conflict that it was difficult to move around

02:33the town because the fighting was nearly everywhere.

02:35And it was difficult to actually take the statistics of those injured, take the statistics

02:40of those that have been the fatalities within the town.

02:44We hope that today that accountability will be done and they will be able to have their

02:51figure of actual people that have been affected or injured in the town.

02:54Meanwhile, again, we have started to access the IDP sites and we hope that again we continue

03:00to negotiate to access areas like Sake, Minova, so that the supplies can resume because these

03:08people really require the humanitarian assistance.

03:11The children, the women that are vulnerable, they really need the assistance now.

03:15Now, the M23 movement has made unprecedented gains in the past week.

03:20Is this something that you thought might happen?

03:24Everyone was caught by surprise because all of us, we never thought that with Goma having

03:32a population of two million people, there will be fighting inside Goma.

03:36We were all pushing for the both parties to have the peaceful resolution to make sure

03:43that the respect for the ceasefire is done because we are worried about humanitarian

03:48of the crisis.

03:50Because you understand that in DRC we have almost 6.4 million people who are in displacement

03:55and we can't afford to have more people getting displaced.

03:59And again, this fighting that happened in Goma has added more number of people that

04:04are going to be in displacement, including those that have moved from Goma into Rwanda.

04:11And DRC President Felix Tshisekedi last night condemned the international community for

04:16their inaction in putting pressure on Rwanda, which backs M23.

04:21Do you agree with this?

04:24That one is quite a challenge because this, we need the diplomatic community to actually

04:31comment and discuss about it.

04:33But we have been watching where we have seen communique from AU, we have seen also communique

04:38from UN Security Council.

04:40So we understand that maybe there might be engagement that are happening, but then, you

04:45know, it's not to the satisfaction of maybe the President.

04:49But we are seeing people trying to see if they can push for diplomatic means to ending

04:55this conflict.

04:56Thank you very much for that, Menenji Mangundu, Country Director for Oxfam in the Democratic

05:01Republic of the Congo.

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