In response to this development, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has adapted by deploying mobile teams to provide life-saving healthcare to people who are once again forced to move, returning to hometowns they had previously fled.

A professor of global health was in Kivu when the fighting began to rage. She recounts what she and her colleagues experienced during those days of terror.

Kanyuka argues that the M23 fighters did not raid but conducted a peaceful operation against 130 Armed Forces of Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) soldiers who were hiding in hospitals.   Goma, DRC | THE INDEPENDENT | The March 23 Movement (M23) have dismissed accusations against them of raiding hospitals in Goma city,

Rwanda-backed rebels captured a key eastern Congo city a month ago Friday. Residents in Goma say they are struggling on various fronts even as the rebels try to consolidate their administration and restart normal life.

Rwanda-backed rebels who captured eastern Congo’s major city of Goma have targeted relatives of fleeing Congolese soldiers. That's according to the soldier's families.

Rwanda-backed rebels captured a key eastern Congo city just over a month ago. Residents in Goma, which was once a critical trade and humanitarian hub, say they are struggling on various fronts even as the rebels try to consolidate their administration and restart normal life.

After rumors of forced recruitment in Goma by the M23 rebel movement, parents rushed into schools to collect their children, while others ran for their lives. School officials and M23 authorities strongly denied allegations of forced recruitment.

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has entered a new and more destabilizing stage. A call for a pause in the fighting by leaders from the 8 member states of the East African Community (EAC) and 16 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was dismissed by Rwandan-backed M23

Since January, however, the rapid conquest and occupation of a huge area of the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwanda and the M23 rebel group it supports has raised concerns that the principle may now be endangered.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and partners in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are providing lifesaving clean water supplies to 700,000 people a day - around 364,000 of them children - in the regional capital Goma after breaks in the water supply due to the uptick in fighting.

Following his tour of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern DR Congo, Alain Destexhe, a former Belgian senator, said that he found the city to be peaceful as inhabitants went about their businesses in normalcy.

The latest conflict in eastern Congo has exposed endemic weaknesses in the country’s military, long known for corruption, extortion and abuse.