Presidential Guard and two other people were murdered September 25)
(PHOTO 2: The Goma cityhall mortuary services hearse is busy these
days picking up bodies from crime scenes. Here, it's picking up the
body of an alleged bandit lynched by a neighborhood posse on Tuesday,
October 2)
***
Blogger-journo Charly Kasereka and France24 news channel reporter
Ségolène Malterre write that murder rate has soared in Goma, the
besieged provincial capital of North Kivu Province.
A murder rate that could soon prove unsustainable if this dangerous
trend continues in a city of around 400,000 inhabitants.
With M-23 positions at about a mere 30 km north of the city, Goma
denizens, including city and provincial senior officials, are now
prone to the obsessive fear of infiltration by the insurgents who are
blamed for those daily multiple murders.
(The provincial security minister called the murders acts of "urban
terrorism," whereas FARDC North-Kivu spokesman Col. Olovier Amuli
attributed them to "traditional banditry.")
The accusation of infiltration was rejected by M-23 who, on Monday,
October 1, threatened to "seize Goma to save the population."
MONUSCO quickly countered this threat by stating that it was an empty
threat since the military operation it has set up around the city
makes it impregnable.
Charly Kasereka, who's keeping the grim tally, says:
"From September 23 [to October 2], I've counted 15 people slain.
"Besides, lots of residents are being mugged and then have to live
with the trauma of the mugging. [...]
"In one neighborhood, it's a captain of the Republican [Presidential]
Guard who is killed in a hail of bullets while having a beer; in
another, a man has his motorcycle seized and he's then beaten up.
"The situation is such that on September 26 a special security
meeting was held at the governorate, but that very same night it was
the lieutenant-governor's house that was taken as a target practice,
sustaining gunshots and grenade blasts.
"Just yesterday, a colleague journalist who went for a walk after
nightfall was mugged.
"Personally, I no longer go out after 6 p.m., for that's the time when
armed gangs start fanning out through the streets."
Charly Kasereka and Ségolène Malterre end their report with this piece
of chilling news:
"Being poorly paid, some [FARDC] soldiers don't think twice about
selling their weapons to bandits [...]"
***
SOURCES:
(actudukivu.blogspot.com/2012/10/sous-la-menace-des-rebelles-la-ville-de.html?m=1)
and
(observers.france24.com/fr/content/20121002-alors-rebelles-sont-portes-goma-ville-sombre-violence-nord-kivu-guerre-m23-criminalite)
***
Crédits Photo: Charly Kasereka
Via: actudukivu.blogspot
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