Strikes on M23-held DR Congo city kill several people

Air strikes overnight Tuesday to Wednesday killed several people in the key eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma, controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, sources told AFP.

A patrol car of the M23 movement patrols in Uvira on December 13, 2025. The M23, backed by the Rwandan army, continued to advance on Saturday in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite Washington’s ire and its Saturday pledge to respond to Kigali’s “clear violation” of the peace agreement. After seizing the major cities of Goma in January and Bukavu in February, the M23 armed group launched a new offensive in early December in the eastern province of South Kivu, along the Burundian border, just as the DRC and Rwanda were signing a peace deal in Washington under the auspices of Donald Trump. On Wednesday, the armed group captured Uvira, a city of several hundred thousand inhabitants, enabling it to control the land border between the DRC and Burundi, a military backer of Kinshasa. (Photo by Jospin Mwisha / AFP)
Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of the mineral-rich Congolese east with Rwanda’s backing, unleashing a fresh spiral of violence in a region long plagued by fighting.

According to witnesses, the sound of bomb blasts and buzzing drones rang out in several residential neighbourhoods of Goma, a large provincial capital near the border with Rwanda which the M23 seized in a lightning offensive in 2025.

Humanitarian sources reported a toll of several buildings targeted and several people killed by Wednesday morning.

One of the houses hit was severely gutted, partially burnt and had its roof destroyed, an AFP reporter at the scene saw.

Shrapnel also hit neighbouring buildings, blowing out their windows.

An aid worker close to the house hit told AFP that he had heard the sound of a drone, followed by a loud explosion that blew a “hole in the roof” of the building.

Firefighters, United Nations employees and officials from the M23 were present at the site on Wednesday morning.