America's North Shore Journal

The human­i­tar­ian cat­a­stro­phe in the east­ern Congo seems to be reach­ing a cli­max, one of the many over the last fifty years.

The Con­golese Army has fled from a rebel advance. The UN is using what forces it has, includ­ing heli­copter gun­ships, to slow the rebels, Tut­sis. North Kivu province, which bor­ders Rawanda, has been the site of eth­nic fight­ing for at least five years as a result of the geno­ci­dal acts that took place in Rawanda. The rebel fac­tions are pri­mar­ily made up of forces from the National Con­gress for the Defense of the Peo­ple (CNDP) and the Demo­c­ra­tic Forces for the Lib­er­a­tion of Rwanda (FDLR).

A blog­ger from the region reports:

It’s total chaos in Goma. I am being told, through var­i­ous phone calls and text mes­sages, that the army have now laid down their weapons at Kibumba, 12 miles north of Goma, and are flee­ing the rebels. In other words they have totally given up.

Some of the sol­diers are running/driving/zooming on motor­bikes through town towards the west, Sake, and they are going past my house.

The gov­er­nor of North Kivu has appar­ently also left town.

Now there is only the UN peace­keep­ing forces stop­ping Nkunda’s rebels from tak­ing Goma.

There is lots and lots of spec­u­la­tion right now — and panic. I will keep you posted.

Cur­rent News:

• Fight­ing in Congo Approaches Goma
• Red Cross Intends to Boost Med­ical Teams in Goma
• Human­i­tar­ian Sit­u­a­tion in the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of the Congo

I just com­pleted an inter­view with a United States Army offi­cer who was in Goma ear­lier in the year. I am try­ing to con­firm what I heard him say. If I heard him cor­rectly, it will be a shocker.