November 19, 2012—International Medical Corps has evacuated staff from Goma, DRC amid some of the heaviest fighting in the area since 2008. The rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) reached the outskirts of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and home to one million people, on Sunday night and issued a 24-hour ultimatum for the government to engage in direct negotiations. This follows violence between rebel forces and government troops last week, with both sides claiming heavy losses. The tensions in Goma exacerbate an already volatile and unpredictable security situation in North and South Kivu. Defections in early April within the poorly integrated Congolese army, or FARDC, led to attacks and counterattacks in recent months that left hundreds of innocent civilians dead. M23’s current advancement toward Goma is causing more people to flee their homes, adding to the 1.6 million people already displaced in the Kivus. Several of the 70,000 refugees in Kanyaruchinya camp north of Goma have also started leaving.
International Medical Corps’ global security team is monitoring the situation in Goma closely and ensuring the utmost safety of its staff. With Congolese civilians highly exposed to violence, hunger and disease, International Medical Corps hopes for a swift resumption of our operations in Goma so that we can provide critically needed relief to vulnerable populations.
International Medical Corps began working in DRC in 1999 and has since served approximately two million people, 80 percent of them displaced by the war. Today, International Medical Corps provides health care, nutrition, food security, sexual violence prevention and treatment, and water and sanitation services in some of DRC’s most remote and volatile areas, often where the presence of other international organizations is extremely limited or non-existent.
Since its inception nearly 30 years ago, International Medical Corps' mission has been consistent: relieve the suffering of those impacted by war, natural disaster and disease, by delivering vital health care services that focus on training. This approach of helping people help themselves is critical to returning devastated populations to self-reliance. For more information visit: www.InternationalMedicalCorps.org. Also see us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.