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Report
War in the DRC's east: Will there be a 'push for diplomatic means to end this conflict'?
FRANCE 24 English
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1/30/2025
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Transcript
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00:00
Now, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Felix Tshisekedi said that DRC troops
00:07
are mounting a vigorous response to M23 rebels, who in recent days have captured vast swathes
00:12
of the east of the country, including most of the key city of Goma.
00:16
Tshisekedi also condemned the inaction of the international community and called on
00:21
it to put pressure on Rwanda, which backs the rebels.
00:25
Let's take a listen.
00:26
A strong and coordinated military response against these terrorists and their allies
00:33
is underway.
00:36
Our valiant DRC armed forces, symbol of courage and patriotism, are fully mobilized and ready
00:42
to defend every inch of our territory.
00:49
I would like to directly appeal to the international community and the African Union.
00:55
Rwanda continues to openly violate the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, as well as
01:01
regional agreements.
01:05
Your silence and your passivity in the face of the barbaric actions taken by the Kigali
01:09
regime and the atrocities it committed on our soil are an insult not only to the DRC
01:16
but also to universal values of justice and peace.
01:23
And for more on this, we can bring in Menengi Mangundu, who is country director for Oxfam
01:27
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
01:30
Good morning, Menengi, and thank you very much for joining us.
01:34
More than a hundred people dead and at least a thousand wounded in the past few days in
01:38
North Kivu province.
01:40
What are the immediate humanitarian challenges you have been seeing?
01:45
Thank you very much.
01:46
We have been seeing that the communities have been cut off from water, they've been cut
01:51
off from electricity, they don't have food.
01:54
The business within Goma town was on standstill.
01:59
Nothing was functioning.
02:00
But as of today, we are seeing that people have started to come back, including some
02:05
people that have also left their camps, they've started to come back to the camps.
02:10
But we tried by all means to make sure that in the displaced camps where we were working,
02:16
we continued with some pumping of the water to the communities, though it was really challenging
02:22
when even the people that were supposed to pump the water had to go for safety.
02:27
And then we have noticed as well during the conflict that it was difficult to move around
02:33
the town because the fighting was nearly everywhere.
02:35
And it was difficult to actually take the statistics of those injured, take the statistics
02:40
of those that have been the fatalities within the town.
02:44
We hope that today that accountability will be done and they will be able to have their
02:51
figure of actual people that have been affected or injured in the town.
02:54
Meanwhile, again, we have started to access the IDP sites and we hope that again we continue
03:00
to negotiate to access areas like Sake, Minova, so that the supplies can resume because these
03:08
people really require the humanitarian assistance.
03:11
The children, the women that are vulnerable, they really need the assistance now.
03:15
Now, the M23 movement has made unprecedented gains in the past week.
03:20
Is this something that you thought might happen?
03:24
Everyone was caught by surprise because all of us, we never thought that with Goma having
03:32
a population of two million people, there will be fighting inside Goma.
03:36
We were all pushing for the both parties to have the peaceful resolution to make sure
03:43
that the respect for the ceasefire is done because we are worried about humanitarian
03:48
of the crisis.
03:50
Because you understand that in DRC we have almost 6.4 million people who are in displacement
03:55
and we can't afford to have more people getting displaced.
03:59
And again, this fighting that happened in Goma has added more number of people that
04:04
are going to be in displacement, including those that have moved from Goma into Rwanda.
04:11
And DRC President Felix Tshisekedi last night condemned the international community for
04:16
their inaction in putting pressure on Rwanda, which backs M23.
04:21
Do you agree with this?
04:24
That one is quite a challenge because this, we need the diplomatic community to actually
04:31
comment and discuss about it.
04:33
But we have been watching where we have seen communique from AU, we have seen also communique
04:38
from UN Security Council.
04:40
So we understand that maybe there might be engagement that are happening, but then, you
04:45
know, it's not to the satisfaction of maybe the President.
04:49
But we are seeing people trying to see if they can push for diplomatic means to ending
04:55
this conflict.
04:56
Thank you very much for that, Menenji Mangundu, Country Director for Oxfam in the Democratic
05:01
Republic of the Congo.
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