Red Cross escorts hundreds of stranded Congolese soldiers from rebel-controlled city to capital

Hundreds of stranded Congolese soldiers and police officers, along with their families, were being transferred from the rebel-controlled city of Goma in eastern Congo to the capital, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced Wednesday.

The soldiers and police officers have been taking refuge at the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Congo's base since January, when the decades-long conflict in eastern Congo escalated as the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced and seized the strategic Goma.

The operation is the result of an agreement reached between the Congolese government, the rebels, the U.N. mission and the ICRC, which was called upon as a neutral intermediary, the Red Cross said in a statement. Upon arrival in Kinshasa, the soldiers, police officers and their families will be taken in by Congolese authorities, it added.

Myriam Favier, the ICRC chief in Goma, said during a press briefing Wednesday that the transfer from Goma to Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west, is expected to last several days.

The announcement was greeted with profound relief.

“We were disarmed because we had no choice, but we hope to reach Kinshasa,” a Congolese soldier told The Associated Press over the phone, ahead of his transfer. “As soldiers, we are always ready to defend our homeland. We lost a battle, not the war,” he said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was still in the rebel-controlled area and not allowed to speak to reporters.

Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for Congo’s armed forces, welcomed the initiative in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Congolese Armed Forces hopes that this operation will be carried out in strict compliance with the commitments made,” he said, thanking the ICRC for its role.

For security reasons, no media outlets were allowed to film or photograph the operation.

The news of the ICRC's escort comes amid persistent tensions in eastern Congo, where fighting between Congo's army and M23 continues, despite both sides having agreed to work toward a truce earlier this month.

On Saturday, residents of Kaziba in the South Kivu province reported clashes between Congolese armed forces, supported by an allied militia, and M23.

M23 is one of about 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda, in a conflict that has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced.

The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Kinshasa.

In Feburary, the U.N. Human Rights Council launched a commission to investigate atrocities, including allegations of rape and killing akin to “summary executions” by both sides.

Conflict in eastern Congo is estimated to have killed 6 million people since the mid-1990s, in the wake of the Rwanda genocide. Some of the ethnic Hutu extremists responsible for the 1994 killing of an estimated 1 million of Rwanda’s minority ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates later fled across the border into eastern Congo, fueling the proxy fighting between rival militias aligned to the two governments.