The afternoon sun beat down on Lieutenant Jean Mutombo as he clutched his five-year-old daughter’s hand, their shadows stretching across the dusty compound of the United Nations base in Goma. For six months, this small patch of relative safety had been their home—a limbo between the life they once knew and an uncertain future.
“Today, we finally leave,” he whispered to her, pointing to the convoy of Red Cross vehicles assembling at the gate. “We’re going to Kinshasa.”
His daughter’s eyes widened. “Will there be bombs there too, Papa?”
Lieutenant Mutombo is one of hundreds of stranded Congolese soldiers and police officers, along with their families, now being transferred from rebel-controlled Goma in eastern Congo to the capital, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced Wednesday. Behind each uniform is a story of survival, displacement, and hope.
More Stories:
1. Court orders EFCC to release businesswoman Aisha Achimugu
2. Climate resilience at the heart of WaterAid Nigeria’s WASH policy push
3. Tragic end of missing South Africa police officers, bodies recovered
4. AUF accuse Nigeria gov’t of marginalising the north in CNG roll out
“We’ve slept on concrete floors since January,” said Marie Bafuna, a police officer’s wife, cradling her infant son born within the confines of the UN base. “My children have forgotten what it means to feel safe.”
These families have been taking refuge at the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Congo’s base since January, when the decades-long conflict in eastern Congo escalated dramatically. The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced through villages and towns, eventually seizing strategic Goma, sending thousands fleeing from their homes with only what they could carry.
For Celestin Kabange, a 43-year-old sergeant, the fall of Goma meant abandoning the small farm where his family had lived for generations. “My father’s grave is there,” he said, his voice breaking. “The mango trees I planted when my children were born—all left behind.”
The operation to move these displaced personnel is the result of painstaking negotiations—an agreement reached between the Congolese government, the rebels, the U.N. mission and the ICRC, which was called upon as a neutral intermediary, the Red Cross said in a statement. Upon arrival in Kinshasa, the soldiers, police officers and their families will be taken in by Congolese authorities, it added.
Myriam Favier, the ICRC chief in Goma, said during a press briefing Wednesday that the transfer from Goma to Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west, is expected to last several days.
“This is not just a logistical operation,” Favier explained. “It’s about restoring dignity to people who have been living in limbo, uncertain if they would ever see their extended families again.”
The announcement was greeted with profound relief tinged with apprehension about what awaits them.
“We were disarmed because we had no choice, but we hope to reach Kinshasa,” a Congolese soldier told The Associated Press over the phone, ahead of his transfer. His voice dropped to a whisper as he added, “My children still wake up screaming from nightmares of the gunfire. Perhaps in Kinshasa, they will learn to sleep peacefully again.” Then, with renewed determination: “As soldiers, we are always ready to defend our homeland. We lost a battle, not the war.”
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was still in the rebel-controlled area and not allowed to speak to reporters.
Among those preparing for the journey was Claudine Mugisha, a 34-year-old teacher married to a police officer. She had been organizing makeshift classes for the children at the base using nothing but a small chalkboard and donated notebooks.
“Education is their only weapon that cannot be taken away,” she said, watching children play between packed bags. “Even in war, we must continue to teach them that a different future is possible.”
Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for Congo’s armed forces, welcomed the initiative in a statement on Wednesday.
“The Congolese Armed Forces hopes that this operation will be carried out in strict compliance with the commitments made,” he said, thanking the ICRC for its role.
For security reasons, no media outlets were allowed to film or photograph the operation—another reminder of the delicate nature of the transfer through territories where violence can erupt without warning.
The news of the ICRC’s escort comes amid persistent tensions in eastern Congo, where fighting between Congo’s army and M23 continues, despite both sides having agreed to work toward a truce earlier this month.
On Saturday, residents of Kaziba in the South Kivu province reported clashes between Congolese armed forces, supported by an allied militia, and M23. In a small church converted to a makeshift shelter, 68-year-old Pascal Bisimwa described the sound of approaching gunfire.
“First you hear it far away, like thunder,” he said. “Then it comes closer, and you must decide: Is it safer to run or to hide? This is the calculation we make every day.”
M23 is one of about 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda, in a conflict that has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced—each representing a disrupted life, an abandoned home, children whose education has been interrupted.
The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Kinshasa.
In February, the U.N. Human Rights Council launched a commission to investigate atrocities, including allegations of rape and killing akin to “summary executions” by both sides.
Dr. Esperance Kashala, who runs a clinic for displaced persons outside Goma, sees the human cost of these atrocities daily. “The physical wounds we can treat,” she said, cleaning a child’s infected cut. “But the psychological scars—these will shape a generation.”
Conflict in eastern Congo is estimated to have killed 6 million people since the mid-1990s, in the wake of the Rwanda genocide. Some of the ethnic Hutu extremists responsible for the 1994 killing of an estimated 1 million of Rwanda’s minority ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates later fled across the border into eastern Congo, fueling the proxy fighting between rival militias aligned to the two governments.
This historical context means little to eight-year-old Fabrice, who boarded the ICRC convoy with his soldier father and mother. He carried only a small backpack containing a worn teddy bear and a notebook filled with drawings of helicopters and soldiers.
“When we get to Kinshasa,” he said with determination beyond his years, “I will draw houses without bombs, and people who are not running.”
As the convoy prepared to depart, Lieutenant Mutombo lifted his daughter onto his shoulders. “Look ahead,” he told her, pointing west toward Kinshasa. “That is where we are going. A new chapter.”
The vehicles pulled away from the UN base, carrying with them hundreds of interrupted lives, seeking not just physical safety but the restoration of dignity and hope that peace might someday return to their homeland.
