Civilians attend a meeting organised by M23 at the Stade de L’Unite, a few days after the town of Goma was taken by M23 rebels, in Goma on February 6, 2025.
That night, there was an uneasy quiet in Goma, at many corners of the city were uniforms allegedly discarded by DR Congo government soldiers who fled the battle as insurgents’ onslaught continues
At a few minutes past midnight, a message came on a WhatsApp group created by Rwandan “media handlers,” that there was an opportunity to talk to the M23 rebels, who had captured Goma, so could be at the grand barriere at 6 am? The grande barriere is the point on the Rwanda-Congo border.
By 8 am, the border point was a beehive of activity, with Rwandan uniformed and un uninformed security personnel criss-crossing the border, and refugees fleeing the intense fighting in the North Kivu Province pouring in, as well as groups of evacuees, including USAid and United Nations (UN) staff.
A Rwandan media liaison was in touch with M23, we were told, and would relay the message to us when the coast was clear. So we waited.
We were more than 50 local and international journalists camped at the border waiting for the greenlight. It felt like forever. As we waited, the file of evacuees got longer. Congolese villagers, charity workers, mercenaries … all came through.
The European fighters, who had fought alongside the Congolese army and its local allies, were muscular young men with biceps protruding through their tight army green T-shirts. Rwandan police with sniffer dogs screened the new arrivals before forwarding them to the immigration officials.
We finally entered Congo at exactly 4pm, local time on Friday.
M23 soldiers manned barricades into the city and cargo trucks dotted the city, parked with no occupants. We rolled into Goma in a dark grey Land Cruiser, previously owned by the Congolese army but now commandeered by the rebels. They claimed they had grabbed more than 1,000 of those.
I waited for the last trip, chauffeured by an amiable M23 soldier who said he was major. I sat next to his female colleague who I later learned also serves as an activist in the M23 camp.
She spoke good Kinyarwanda. She narrated to us how heavy the battle for Goma had been, saying the heaviest toll was at the Goma airport.
“We have been burying bodies for the last few days. Many people died. It was like a movie,” she said.
I ask her if there were white mercenaries on the battlefield. “There were,” she said, “you will see their dead bodies if you go to the airport.”
That night, there was an uneasy quiet in Goma. At many corners were uniforms allegedly discarded by government soldiers who fled the battle.
I never saw a single dead body on the street, though, but our hosts said they had been picked up. There was war debris: military helmets, bullet casings, jackets, bags littering the streets like unkempt war artefacts.
Some abandoned military trucks lay on the streets. Shops were closed, with only a few people walking. Most people watched the events from their windows. Our driver lost direction twice and apologised, saying, “You see, guys, we have been in the bush for so long, we don’t know this city that well.”
We entered a compound with an apartment building, which served as one of the rebel command centres. We were told it used to house Romanian mercenaries. We were in Goma for a press conference.
The conference was planned to take place here. Gun-wielding M23 guarded the place like a fort and the land cruisers kept bringing in more soldiers as others exited.
Darkness started creeping in and we had no one to ask what was going on, so we waited. Suddenly, Willy Ngoma, M23 military spokesperson, budged in and urged patience.
A generator was switched on for lighting and we waited for close to five hours. At 1 pm, Ngoma came back and apologised for the delay and said the presser wasn’t happening tonight but the following day. He said he would ensure we were settled in hotels and fed.
Ngoma speaks French, Kiswahili, Lingala and a little English. He speaks in a high-pitched commandeering voice and has little patience. Videos of him commanding the European mercenaries had been widely shared. He is quick to anger but also quick to smile.
One of the foreign journalists approached him, and insisted on crossing back to Gisenyi to pick up his camera batteries, and Ngoma snapped at him. “You’re going nowhere!” the soldier said.
Ngoma chaperoned us around Goma on foot, looking for open hotels to lodge in. The city was dark as they had switched off electricity and internet as rebels advanced. So, we trudged on, escorted by gun-wielding M23.
I joked that we may not be aware but we had been abducted by rebels, and the joke fell flat. Good joke, wrong place. We first called at Linda Hotel, where we were told there were only 10 rooms. Female journalists were given priority.
From there we went to Serena which had 27 rooms. Everyone wanted to stay here and this scramble ticked off Ngoma, a lieutenant-colonel of the M23.
Lawrence Kanyuka, the political wing spokesperson, was with us. Kanyuka is a dark, tall man, and seemed like the voice of reason. The hotel manager told Ngoma it was against hotel policy to enter with guns. Ngoma, visibly intoxicated, listened attentively and respectfully, and after the manager finished, he ordered the soldiers with guns to go out of the hotel, which took me aback.
I don’t know how to fight for space or anything so I missed a place at the Serena. Ten of us were taken to the next hotel, Jerryson, not far from Serena. It was dark and the staff were sleeping in their quarters, Ngoma woke them up and asked for rooms and food for the now starving journalists. He was told the kitchen was closed. Ngoma said we’d be fed even if it meant going all the way to Masisi about 80km away. It was around 1am so we just went to bed.
At around 2:20am, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened there were M23 and two hotel staff, asking me down to the reception to eat. I couldn’t believe it. I had a bad headache at this point. Reaching the reception, I found food wrapped in foil, and some journalists already eating.
Ngoma was now visibly angry. Turned out two journalists who hadn’t been counted among us had joined us from the Serena, and Ngoma’s antennae had gone up, thinking they are infiltrators.
To make matters worse, some journalists had refused to come down for food.
“Do you know what I’ve gone through to get this food? I bring it here and you refuse to eat it, my soldiers are not even going to get this food and you are here joking!” he shouted.
One of the international journalists around vouched for his colleagues saying he knew them, and Ngoma stormed off. The M23 rebels paid for the hotel rooms in a city they just captured, and I heard no stories of them looting businesses in Goma.
The following day the press conference happened, addressed by M23 president Corneille Nangaa and others. After that we were driven back to Gisenyi and onward to Kigali. It was a whirlwind trip to Goma and back.
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