On the shores of Lake Kivu, Goma residents were busy filling up plastic jerrycans with lake water. Less than a week since Rwanda-backed rebels claimed control of the city, basic services like water, internet and electricity were completely cut off.

Rwanda-backed rebels claimed on Monday they captured eastern Congo’s strategic city of Goma, the hub of a region containing trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that remains largely untapped.

Bodies are lying on the streets. Medical staff in overwhelmed hospitals are treating hundreds of wounded civilians against the backdrop of gunfire and mortar fire.

President of the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Thursday that his troopers are fighting an insurgence by the Rwandan-backed militant group M23 which recently captured swaths of land in the east.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Wednesday, Netanyahu said in a statement, amid the Gaza ceasefire and a regional diplomatic push.

The scene is the result of the invasion of Goma on January 27th by M23, an armed group under the control of Rwanda, Congo’s neighbour, which abuts the city. Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, has escalated a crisis whose origins go back decades.

The Rwandan defence ministry has confirmed the surrender and evacuation of Romanian mercenaries from the private military company Congo Protection, an ally of the Congolese army since the end of 2022.

A rebel alliance spearheaded by the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 militia said it had seized the lakeside city of more than 2 million people.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's President Félix Tshisekedi is not taking part in regionally brokered talks aimed at ending the rebel assault on the key eastern city of Goma, state media has reported.

Bishop of Willy Ngumbi Ngengele of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Willy says he is dismayed at the scale of violence in his diocese as M23 rebels advanced into the town.

In June last year, Rwanda's government spokesperson Yolande Makolo hit out about the presence of mercenaries in eastern DR Congo, saying it was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the use of hired combatants. In response, Congolese government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya dismissed what he called Rwanda's perennial complaint.