Rwanda-backed rebels advance in eastern Congo as residents flee by the thousands

An empty street in Bukavu, eastern Congo, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Janvier Barhahiga)

GOMA, CONGO — Panic swept through eastern Congo’s second-largest city on Saturday as residents and soldiers fled by the thousands, scrambling to escape the looming advance of Rwanda-backed rebels.

The morning after M23 fighters entered the outskirts of Bukavu — a city of about 1.3 million people that lies 63 miles (101 kilometers) south of rebel-held Goma — some streets were flooded by residents attempting to leave and looters filling flour sacks with what they could find. A pall of silence set in later in the day as residents and business owners braced for what comes next.

But on Saturday, M23 did not appear to have taken decisive control of Bukavu. The group did not announce advances like a day earlier when they took control of an airport outside the city.

A relative calm returned as gunfights stopped after Congolese troops exited the city and drove south, Bukavu resident Alexis Bisimwa said.

“We’re no longer waiting for the crackling of bullets as we were during the day,” he told The Associated Press by telephone.

Residents said they were shocked to see corpses burnt to ash lying strewn in the streets — casualties of the looters who filled the vacuum left by Congolese soldiers abandoning their posts.

“They set fire to the ammunition they were unable to take with them,” said Alain Iragi, among the residents who fled in search of safety on Saturday.

Reports and social media videos showed the region’s factories pillaged and prisons emptied while electricity remained on and communication lines open in most places.

“It’s a disgrace. Some citizens have fallen victim to stray bullets. Even some soldiers still present in the city are involved en masse in these cases of looting,” a 25-year-old resident of a neighborhood being looted told the AP.

The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups that includes M23, blamed Congolese troops and their allies from local militia and neighboring Burundi for the disorder in Bukavu.

“We call on the population to remain in control of their city and not give in to panic,” Lawrence Kanyuka, the alliance’s spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday.

Pierre Bahizi, the rebels' new self-proclaimed governor of Bukavu, implored the city’s residents to remain calm and organize among themselves to bring a return of order.

“We must not leave power in the street,” he said Saturday.

Rebels push south after seizing Goma last month

M23, a rebel group backed by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, is the most prominent of more than 100 vying for control of Congo’s mineral-rich east.

Its southward expansion encompasses more territory than rebels had previously seized and poses an unprecedented challenge to the central government in Kinshasa. Taking Bukavu could risk deeper scrutiny from an international community whose attentions have been divided amid several global conflicts. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called for an immediate ceasefire, an M23 withdrawal and a safe return of Congolese authorities to Bukavu.

The rebellion underway has killed nearly 3,000 people in eastern Congo and stranded hundreds of thousands of displaced. At least 350,000 internally displaced people are without shelter, the U.N. and Congolese authorities have said.

The rebels show little sign of slowing. On Friday, they claimed to have seized the airport serving Bukavu, located in a town north of the city.

The AP couldn’t confirm who was in control of the strategically important airport, which Congolese forces use to resupply troops and humanitarian groups to import aid. Congo River Alliance said on Saturday that M23 had taken control of the airport to prevent Congolese forces from launching airstrikes against civilians.

Government officials and local civil society leaders didn’t immediately comment, though Congo’s Communications Ministry said the rebels had violated ceasefire agreements and attacked Congolese troops working to avoid urban warfare and violence in Bukavu.

The reports of looting and disorder come a day after residents told the AP that soldiers in Kavumu — the airport town north of Bukavu — had abandoned their positions to head toward the city. The chain of events mirror what transpired last month in the lead-up to the M23’s capture of Goma. Congo’s military, despite its size and funding, has long been hindered by shortcomings in training and coordination and recurring reports of corruption.

African leaders worry conflict could spread

The conflict was among the top agenda items at the African Union summit in Ethiopia on Saturday, where U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned it risked spiraling into a regional conflagration.

“Regional escalation must be avoided at all costs,” Guterres told the African Union summit. “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of (Congo) must be respected.”

Yet African leaders and the international community have been reluctant to take decisive action against M23 or Rwanda.

Though Guterres said that the solution to the conflict lay in Africa, African leaders disagree on how to resolve the conflict in a way that satisfies the warring parties.

Despite universal calls for a ceasefire, the rebellion has inflamed historic tensions within the Great Lakes region. Troops from Burundi and the Southern African Development Community are deployed in support of Congolese forces. Ugandan troops are fighting other rebel groups in other regions within eastern Congo, where attacks on civilians have been reported in recent months.

In Ituri, hundreds of kilometers north of where M23 is on the march, Ugandan troops are hunting members of the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces.

The fighting risked severe escalation on Saturday. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s top military commander, told all armed forces in the province’s capital that they had 24 hours to surrender and warned that it would soon be under Ugandan Army control.

“If they don’t, we shall consider them enemies and attack them,” Kainerugaba said in a post on X, without identifying the other forces.