00:00 Minova, which has 65,000 inhabitants and nearly 300,000 displaced, is constantly threatened
00:05 by rebels.
00:06 Residents live in fear of not being able to leave this enclosed city, stuck between
00:11 the Kivu Lake and the Mazizi Mountains.
00:13 Minova as a tragic condenser of the war in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
00:18 And a symbol of the failure of the Congolese state, which struggles to curb the progression
00:22 of the M23 rebels, March 23 Movement, supported by units of the Rwandan army.
00:27 "If the worst comes to pass, a rebel attack on the city, they will not be able to flee",
00:32 warns Jean-Paul Cancu, head of the administrative entity that governs Minova and 12 surrounding
00:37 villages.
00:38 Since Monday, several boats with civilian passengers have been wiping out shots after
00:43 leaving Minova, according to local sources.
00:45 To escape, only wooden boats or helicopters remain, to the most serious injured
00:51 who could be transported to the city.
00:53 In the north, clashes prohibit any movement.
00:57 In the south, National Road 2 is impassable, carried to several places by landslides.
01:03 In the center of Minova, military and militia bands in the city, armed with bandoliers,
01:09 while sporadic fighting continues in coastal villages, a few kilometers north.
01:14 In February, they were chased by the M23 from their position on the edge of the lake and
01:20 in the mountains that overshadow it.
01:21 They are now stuck in the bay of Minova and all their land supply routes
01:26 are cut off.
01:27 "The enemy sees everything.
01:29 The enemy sees everything on the lake", explains Jean-Paul Cancu, who now fears an assault
01:34 of the M23 on the city.
01:36 Since mid-2022, the rebels have been expanding their hold on the province of the North that
01:40 sees and installs their own administration in the areas they control.
01:43 In recent weeks, they have been progressing at full speed north, about 100 km from Minova,
01:49 where they seized cities and bases of the Congolese army.
01:52 The latter is trying so hard to contain the rebel columns.
01:56 An administrative officer in Minova, covered by anonymity, denounces the participation
02:02 of 12 and 13-year-olds alongside the Congolese armed forces, as other witnesses have witnessed
02:06 in recent weeks, and the failed artillery fires that fall into the city, immediately attributed,
02:11 falsely according to numerous testimonies, to the M23 by the military authorities.
02:16 "Since February 2, we have received at least 280 war wounded", explains Dr.
02:22 Djibril Kazreka, head of the staff at the Minova hospital.
02:25 He is sculpting the bloody foot of a soldier, wounded by bullets, and laments loudly on
02:31 his radio devices since the rebels cut off the power line.
02:35 In the room, very young militiamen, soldiers, civilians, all wounded by bullets or
02:41 shrapnel.
02:42 The morgue no longer works either.
02:44 "So the bodies are decomposing in their morgue bags", explains Dr. Kazreka, "with
02:50 all the risks of contamination that this leads to.
02:52 Everything is missing here.
02:54 This very morning, we asked Goma, the provincial capital, to send us bands,
03:01 perfusions, catheters, painkillers by boat .
03:03 No medication.
03:05 Some wounded soldiers threaten us, say they will kill us, ", says one of the hospital
03:11 staff .
03:12 They do not understand why they do not receive medication, but in reality, there is no
03:17 medication.
03:18 Or so little.
03:19 Doctors Without Borders, MSF and the CICR, the International Committee of the Red Cross,
03:25 support Dr. Djibril Kazreka and his colleagues so well.
Comments