Patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds have crammed into overwhelmed hospitals in Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many with serious injuries and in need of blood, after M23 rebels backed by Rwanda march into the city.
At least 2,900 people have been killed and thousands more wounded since the militia entered the city on 26 January, according to the UN. Fighting raged for the better part of last week.
“I arrived here in agony,” said Mamy Esther, 40, who suffered a pelvic injury in a bombing last week and is being treated at Kyeshero hospital.
Doctors at the facility walked around examining patients, many in bandages and plaster casts, lying in beds in about 20 tents outside the hospital building.
Esther said she had lost her six-year-old son in the explosion that left her initially unable to walk. “I am recovering little by little,” she said.
At Virunga hospital, Chadrack Kabumba, 20, nursed bullet wounds to his knee and shoulders after he was shot four times on his way to check if his property had been vandalised the day after M23 entered Goma. “By divine grace, I hope that I will recover,” he said, sitting on his bed. Other patients nearby screamed and writhed in pain.
Esther and Kabumba are among hundreds of people in Goma wounded in the fighting who are in desperate need of blood.
The fighting has caused an influx to hospitals and deepened the crisis in the city of 2 million people, a humanitarian hub for those displaced.
At the start of the offensive on Goma, Kyeshero, which is supported by Doctors without Borders, mainly received patients with shrapnel wounds, the charity said. Now it mostly treats bullet wounds.
On the first day the fighting eased, the hospital received nearly 140 wounded people at its triage unit, many of whom were admitted.
The conflict has also disrupted transport routes, cutting off flows of aid, food and medical supplies. It has also made it impossible for overwhelmed hospitals to move patients to Bukavu, the capital of neighbouring South Kivu province.
In response to the need for blood, Goma residents have queued in different parts of the city to donate. Among them was Prince Muhindo at Heal Africa hospital in the city centre on Wednesday.
“I realise that many people are suffering greatly from the lack of blood following the recent fighting, said Muhindo, 25, a motorcyclist. “To put an end to this situation, I resolved to save lives of my own free will.”
Muhindo said some of his family members had died of bullet wounds when M23 took over the city.
In Katindo neighbourhood, people sat on chairs at a blood donation centre. Masika Mireille, 38, a housekeeper, regularly donate, but this time she was doing it for a deeper and symbolic purpose, she said.
“To demonstrate the resilience of our city, I give my blood to save these thousands of people who need it,” she said. “It is my responsibility as a patriot.”
Innocent Gashamba, who is charge of blood collection at the provincial blood transfusion centre in Goma, said it hadbeen running four donation sessions a day since Saturday, with a target of 200bags a day.
“There is a crying need for blood,” he said, urging the city’s residents to “participate massively.”
“Blood has no substitute,” he said.
M23, a Tutsi-led group that the DRC, UN, US and other countries say Rwanda supports, claims its aim is to protect the interests of the Congolese Tutsi and other minorities.
It’s one of more than 100 armed groups fighting to make territorial gains in the DRC’s mineral-rich east to fund their operations.
Rwanda denies backing M23, but UN experts say there is solid evidence to the contrary, and that Rwanda uses the militia to extract and export valuable minerals.
M23 declared a unilateral ceasefire “for humanitarian reasons” starting on Tuesday, as humanitarian organisations and the international community have stepped up calls for the creation of safe corridors to get vital items in to Goma.
But its fighters broke the ceasefire on Wednesday, launching another offensive in eastern DRC and seizing a mining town in South Kivu province.
Two regional blocs – the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community – will hold a joint summit in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania on Friday and Saturday to discuss the conflict.
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