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.
"For example, several shells struck the charity maternity hospital in central Goma, killing and injuring civilians, including newborn and pregnant women," he said. A Save the Children facility and the UNHCR site also were struck.
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.
"Civilians are taking the brunt of the escalating hostilities," he said.
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 700,000 internally displaced people in and surrounding Goma living in dire conditions over the weekend are again on the move. "They have no choices they have to flee the violence," he said.
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 … there has been significant advances in favor of M23 and Rwanda Defense Forces. To a large extent it's a shift in the balance of force."
He described the humanitarian challenges as daunting, "and certainly the risks of a broad humanitarian disaster are very high. And also we want to avoid the risk of a broad war."
The peacekeeping chief recalled that three UN peacekeepers were killed, two South Africans and one from Uruguay, with 12 others injured. Government forces also suffered casualties.
The resident coordinator also reported essential services in Goma are becoming critical. While water and electricity are becoming compromised and internet services cut, phone networks are working but patchy.
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