Goma, A City Taken - A year after a rebel takeover : Shared by Tom McDermott

Goma and the eastern DRC remain at war, although Goma and its immediate surroundings are firmly under the control of the M23 rebel group. Photographer Guerchom Ndebo provides a photo essay on the state of the city one year after it fell to M23, documenting the personal stories of how residents are coping.

This is yet another ceasefire that has failed to bring peace, despite President Trump's inclusion of eastern DRC among his eight claimed peace agreements. The accord was signed on December 4, 2025, but fighting flared up within hours of the ceremony. Just five days later, M23 advanced on Uvira, a key town in South Kivu province.

Congolese officials have made clear that "the deal is not a surrender and we will continue to fight Rwandan proxies." Critically, M23 itself is not party to the Washington agreement and has stated it will not retreat from areas where it has established governance. As M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka bluntly declared: "What happened in Washington doesn't concern us." The agreement depends on parallel Qatar-led negotiations between the DRC government and M23, but those talks remain stalled.

According to reports by UNICEF and other agencies:

*Schools in Goma reopened on February 9, 2025, but with few students in attendance. UNICEF warned that displaced children may never return to school. "For the past two years we have invested heavily in learning structures at displacement sites around Goma. But these are now largely empty, and we are extremely worried that children who are displaced once more may never return to school." - Jean Francois Basse, UNICEF acting Representative in DRC

* Nearly 395,000 internally displaced persons remain in precarious conditions across the health zones of Goma, Karisimbi and Nyiragongo, crowded into makeshift shelters with severe food insecurity. 

* In the Goma and Karisimbi health zones, facilities treated 624 additional children with severe acute malnutrition in mid-2025.

* Mpox epidemics continue with mpox isolation centers having collapsed during the fighting 

* Cholera outbreaks continue despite efforts UNICEF and its partners to provide clean water for 700,000 people

* UNICEF has accused fighters on all sides of raping scores of children.  Recruitment of child soldiers remains a major concern.

A City, Taken: Goma one year after M23 rebel takeover

By Guerchom Ndebo (Visuals and Text)

New York Times

February 9, 2026

Click here for the article: 

Summary

One year after Rwanda-backed M23 rebels violently stormed Goma, the capital of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, residents of the city of 2 million people carry violent memories alongside signs of hope. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and more than 2,800 wounded when the city fell in late January 2025, according to international aid groups. 

Photographer Guerchom Ndebo, who has lived in Goma most of his life, was photographing at a hospital when doctors and nurses became overwhelmed with gunshot victims. 

The conflict has created one of the world's most complex humanitarian crises, with more than 8.2 million people displaced across the country and millions more thrown into poverty, according to the United Nations. 

While President Trump presided over a December peace deal between Rwanda and Congo, clashes between rebels, government forces and allied militias continue, with many experts calling the deal largely symbolic. 

M23 has set up parallel governments in areas they control, appointing neighborhood chiefs, city mayors and governors. Hospitals overwhelmed a year ago now treat long-term injuries at centers like Shirika La Umoja Centre, which provides rehabilitation and prosthetic fittings for patients with disabilities. 

Despite hard memories and daily difficulties, residents show resilience.  During a national holiday last month, people gathered for concerts in nightclubs and cultural centers, with musicians sharing songs about their struggles. On Lake Kivu's banks, where bodies washed ashore after the takeover, vendors now cross the water in canoes to bring food to the city, and fishermen rowing by lamplight search for the small fish that feed Goma.

Quotes

"It was chaos everywhere. I still remember bodies lying on the ground." - Roger Lufwamba, 55, father of five daughters who lost two children when a bomb fell on his house

"We never imagined it would be this hard, my husband and I. The idea of being separated never crossed our minds, let alone being separated by death." - Beatrice Nashagali, widow and mother of 11 children whose husband was shot in the head outside their home.