Rwanda-backed March 23 Movement (M23) seized control of the city of Masisi, a key town in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on Saturday, January 4.
M23, a militia supported by neighboring Rwanda and its army, has seized vast swathes of the east of the DRC since 2021, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis. Angola-mediated talks between DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame were abruptly canceled in mid-December over disagreements on the terms of a proposed peace deal.
“It is with dismay that we learn of the capture of Masisi center by the M23,” Alexis Bahunga, deputy of the North Kivu province, where the town is located, declared Saturday.
The capture of the town of Masisi “plunges the territory into a serious humanitarian crisis… we ask the government to consider holistic measures aimed at strengthening the logical and operational capacity of the FARDC (Congolese army),” added Bahunga.
‘Civilian injuries’
Masisi resident Dieudonne Mirimo Mahibdule said that from 2:00 pm local time (1200 GMT) the M23 had taken Masisi. They had held a meeting at a parish, saying they had “come to liberate the country”, he added.
The center of the town is “calm for the moment”, but civilians had fled to the hospital to escape gunfire earlier in the day, a medical source declared on condition of anonymity. “There were civilian injuries, but so far no deaths recorded at the hospital,” said the source. “Part of the population took refuge in the hospital, another in the parish, and others in Nyabiondo,” the source added.
Another resident of the area said there had been clashes between the M23 and Congolese army since 10:00 am local time in a nearby village before the Rwanda-backed rebels captured Masisi that afternoon. Sources told AFP on Friday that the M23 had taken control of the Katale area — the last place the rebels needed to pass before entering Masisi.
For 30 years, the DRC’s mineral-rich east has suffered from the ravages of fighting between local and foreign armed groups, dating back to the regional wars of the 1990s.
