UN officials express alarm over escalating violence, humanitarian crisis in DRC

Residents run off after observing members of the M23 armed group walk through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, January 27, 2025. /CFP

Senior UN officials on Monday 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 center, striking hospitals and a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) site.

"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.