United Nations, Jan 28 Senior UN officials expressed alarm over the escalation of violence and the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo DRC , amid intensified hostilities in Goma, the eastern regional capital city.
Bruno Lemarquis, deputy special representative of the secretary-general and the resident and humanitarian coordinator for the DRC, said heavy artillery fire hit the city centre, striking hospitals and a UN Refugee Agency UNHCR site, Xinhua news agency reported. The coordinator was unable to describe the number and extent of casualties at the maternity hospital, but said there were no casualties at the other two sites, adding that hospitals in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, are overwhelmed.
Speaking to reporters at UN headquarters on a video link from Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, Lemarquis said the humanitarian crisis in and around Goma is extremely worrying with "a new threshold of violence and suffering" reached as active combat threatens all quarters of the city.
Lemarquis said the few colleagues of his remaining in the city of 1 million -- only critical UN humanitarian personnel remain -- reported hundreds of thousands of people attempting to flee the violence. Non-essential UN national and international personnel and their dependents were taken to Kinshasa or the regional UN hub in Entebbe, Uganda. The coordinator said , internally displaced people in and surrounding Goma living in dire conditions over the weekend are again on the move.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the under-secretary-general for peace operations, speaking from Damascus where he was visiting, said the ability of his peacekeeping colleagues who had to seek shelter was limited, but he said, "The situation on the ground obviously remains volatile and dangerous. It's clear β¦ there has been significant advances in favor of M23 and Rwanda Defense Forces.
