Rwandan-backed M23 rebels appeared to have consolidated their control over Goma on Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, hundreds of unarmed government soldiers and militia fighters sat on the football pitch while others lined up in what the M23 fighters described as a disarmament process.
Rebel fighters, supported by Rwandan troops, marched into the lakeside city of nearly two million in the worst escalation of a long-running conflict in more than a decade, leaving bodies lying in the streets and
hospitals overwhelmed.
They seized the city’s international airport on Tuesday, which could cut off the main route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
“There are some sporadic shots that are heard here in the neighborhood. They are certainly Wazalendo,” said one resident of the northern Majengo neighborhood, referring to militias that allied with the government in 2022 to resist M23 advances in the hinterlands.
The assault on Goma has led to widespread international condemnation of Rwanda and calls for a ceasefire. The United States urged the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to consider unspecified measures to halt the offensive.
