A week and a half ago, Moïse Ombeni took his wife and four kids to church in Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that sits on the Rwandan border. By the time the second service ended, their pastor had called off the next one, directing congregants to get to safety as rebel militants moved into the area.
The next day, Ombeni watched people flee the city. He had already picked up his school-age children from boarding school on Thursday. Before long, he could hear heavy weapons detonate outside.
“We were in a general panic, and we were wondering if we should stay or go,” he said in French. Before he could decide, he got word that certain districts had fallen to M23, an armed group that was now returning to the city it had once captured, nearly 13 years before. Goma was already surrounded.
Ombeni locked the doors. He felt the house vibrate when stray bullets hit the roof and ricocheted into his courtyard. Outside, hundreds of civilians and soldiers died from gunfire and explosions. Unlike in previous conflicts, government forces fought directly with M23 in every part of the city, a decision that directly increased the number of civilian casualties and damaged buildings. At least 900 bodies have been found so far on the streets, the UN reported.
Ombeni began praying with his family and reciting all 16 verses of Psalm 91 to them. He reached out to his friends from church, and they prayed together on online platforms until their internet connection was cut off. Yet his despair has only grown.
“We feel like life no longer has any meaning and that everything has stopped,” he said.
This is not the first time Ombeni’s city has been ravaged by M23. He was a teller at Trust Merchant Bank in Goma when the armed group stormed through in the middle of the day on November 20, 2012.
Ombeni ran out the office and into the street, where crowds tried to dodge bullets and vehicles speeding through the city, while the Congolese army and UN staff stood by. M23 raped several dozen women and girls as young as 10, looted buildings, and stole vehicles. They “forcibly recruited” soldiers, law enforcement, and civilians into “retraining.”
Nevertheless, Ombeni had felt a flicker of hope. The international community had seen what M23 had done and demanded the group abandon the city. The rebels withdrew within weeks, and they were defeated the following year.
“In 2012, I was still single; I could get by easily. But today it’s different. I have a family,” he said. “Even if I’m afraid myself, I have to have the strength to console and support my wife, my children. … It’s not easy.”
Shortly before last month’s attack, Ombeni heard that M23 was battling the DRC’s armed forces and another rebel coalition less than 15 miles away. He was terrified.
M23’s campaign has emptied camps near Goma that held thousands displaced by past violence. When the fighters shut off electricity and water, some of the displaced escaped to areas near the home of another Christian who has asked not to be named for security reasons.
The Christian and his family tried to share their food and rain-tank water with dozens of people who showed up on their property, having just fled their shelters in a nearby camp.
“We celebrate God for provision and safety,” he wrote in an update to his friends and family, saying he was grateful to be spared from the violence that hit close to home. His neighbors witnessed M23 fighters killing the Congolese soldiers who surrendered to them. The militants left their bodies in the street, and some families were forced to bury their loved ones in their housing compounds.
He also said he feels helpless, seeing overcrowded hospitals and emotionally drained medical staff. He has no idea how his ministry might respond to the widescale suffering. He is currently working to put together relief kits and figuring out how he can offer pastoral care to traumatized soldiers and civilians.
“Please pray that we’ll be given [the] opportunity by God to minister to the church and call the church to [act in] its role in pastoral care, peace-making and reconciliation,” he wrote. “Please pray that the war will end.”
The current conflict, one which peace processes have tried and failed to end, shares overlapping roots with the Rwandan genocide.
Goma sits practically on the border between the DRC and Rwanda. For years, Tutsi cattle herders passed between what is now Burundi, Rwanda, and Congo. Belgian colonizers also relocated Tutsi from Rwanda to Congo to help with their agricultural initiatives. Under their authority, Tutsi, who since the 18th century had reigned as monarchs in the area, had enjoyed government positions and other privileges.
But in 1959, violence broke out between the Hutu and Tutsi, a conflict that ultimately ended with Rwanda’s independence in 1962. The new government elevated Hutu at the expense of the Tutsi, and more than 100,000 Tutsi fled the country, some to Congo. Many Tutsi refugees struggled to make new lives for themselves. The DRC government fought over whether to give Tutsi citizenship, despite many having been in the country prior to its 1960 independence.
In 1993 and 1994, Tutsi conflict with the Hunde, another ethnic group, left thousands dead. After the Rwandan genocide in 1994, scared of Tutsi retaliation, many Hutu fled into Congo, their migration further disrupting the region.
Some of Congo’s Tutsi formed the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CDNP), which advocated for the community’s political representation and sought to protect it from Hutu attacks. The CDNP was led by a former officer in the Rwandan forces that ended the genocide, famously wearing a “Rebels for Christ” pin.
But the group also attacked civilians, sexually assaulted women, and held child soldiers. When it signed a treaty with the Congolese government in 2009, some disgruntled members later formed M23, taking the date of the anniversary (March 23) as its name.
Rwandan president Paul Kagame has repeatedly denied his government’s support of these movements. But a 2022 UN report asserted that Rwandan troops had been in the DRC, and a 2024 report stated that 3,000 and 4,000 Rwanda government forces had been operating alongside M23.
On Monday, Kagame said he didn’t know if Rwanda had troops in Congo.
Kagame has previously accused the Congolese government of collaborating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu armed group with ties to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. On Monday, he added that the group posed an “existential threat” to his country.
On Tuesday, citing humanitarian reasons, M23 announced a ceasefire in the areas that it controls in eastern Congo and stated that it would back off its previous goal of taking Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city.
The news brought people back into the streets, as trucks with goods from neighboring countries drove into Goma and aid workers tended to the wounded and hungry. A couple stores reopened.
Still, life as the Ombeni family has known it has stopped. The kids’ education has been put on hold. Banks, supermarkets, and gas stations have stayed closed. No one can speak out against the government nor resist their requests, whether sexual “favors” or attendance at political rallies. Many doctors have fled, leaving the hospitals ill-equipped to serve the community. Though many seek safety in their homes at night, they worry about break-ins and kidnappings.
“Some Christians have lost faith because the situation is unbearable,” said Ombeni. “May the Lord light this flame of prayer and faith in our hearts!”
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