SOLIDARITY GOODWILL is a non-profit association based in Goma in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire).
There are plenty of places in need, and plenty of small NGOs trying to make a difference, but the scale and severity of the hardship here has been unrelenting for the last decade. National Geographic called Goma "The Most Dangerous City on Earth". If it has slipped under your radar, the video and summary below might help you see why this community especially needs your support.
There are plenty of places in need, and plenty of small NGOs trying to make a difference, but the scale and severity of the hardship here has been unrelenting for the last decade. National Geographic called Goma "The Most Dangerous City on Earth". If it has slipped under your radar, the video and summary below might help you see why this community especially needs your support.
Goma is a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. Goma lies only 13 to 18 km due south of the crater of the active Nyiragongo Volcano. The recent history of Goma has been dominated by the volcano and the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, which in turn fuelled the First and Second Congo Wars. The aftermath of these events was still having effects on the city and its surroundings in 2010. The city was captured by rebels during the M23 rebellion in late 2012, but has since been liberated.
Goma at the centre of the refugee crisis The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was perpetrated by the Hutu-dominated provisional Rwandan government on the Tutsi population and Hutu moderates. In response the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), formed by Tutsi refugees in Uganda, which already controlled large areas of northern Rwanda following its 1990 invasion and the ongoing Civil War, overthrew the Hutu government in Kigali and forced it to relocate to the border town of Gisenyi. As the RPF captured ground, thousands of Hutu refugees fled before it, many ending up in Gisenyi. Then, from July 13 to July 14, 1994, 10,000–12,000 refugees per hour crossed the border into Goma as the Great Lakes refugee crisis took shape. The massive influx created a severe humanitarian crisis, as there was an acute lack of shelter, food and water. Shortly after the arrival of nearly one million refugees, a deadly cholera outbreak claimed thousands of lives in the Hutu refugee camps around Goma. Goma in the First Congo War Hutu militias and members of the Hutu provisional government were among the refugees, and they set up operations from the camps around Goma attacking ethnic Tutsis in the Kivus and Rwandan government forces at the border. For political reasons the Kinshasa government of the then Zaire led by Joseph Mobutu did not prevent the attacks, and so the Rwandan government and its Ugandan allies threw their support behind the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire, a rebel movement led by Laurent Kabila against Mobutu. Rwandan forces stormed the camps at Goma, resulting in thousands of additional deaths, and with their help and that of Uganda, Kabila went on to overthrow Mobutu's regime in the First Congo War, which ended in 1997. Goma in the Second Congo War Within a year Kabila had quarrelled with his former allies, and in 1998 the Rwandan government backed a Goma-based rebel movement against Kabila, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD, sometimes called RCD-Goma) made of Banyamulenge people, related to the Tutsis. They captured Bukavu and other towns, and the Second Congo War began. The Goma refugee camps, in which the Hutu had created a militia called the FDLR (Democratic Force for the Liberation of Rwanda), were again attacked by Rwandan government forces and the RCD. The Second Congo War was unprecedented in Africa for the loss of civilian life in massacres and atrocities. By 2003 the Banyamulenge had become tired of the war and friction emerged between them and Rwanda. In 2002 and 2003 a fragile negotiated peace emerged between the many sides involved in the war. Conflict since the end of the war There have been numerous outbreaks of violence since 2003. The Hutu FDLR remains in the forests and mountains north and west of Goma, carrying out attacks on the Rwandan border and on the Banyamulenge. The Congolese defence forces are unable or unwilling to stop them, and as a consequence Rwanda continues to support Banymulenge rebels such as the RCD and General Nkunda, and to carry out incursions into North Kivu in pursuit of the FDLR.[2] In September 2007 large-scale fighting threatened to break out again as the 8,000-strong militia of General Nkunda, based aroundRutshuru, broke away from integration with the Congolese army and began attacking them in the town of Masisi north-west of Goma. MONUC (United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) began airlifting Congolese troops into Goma and transferring them by helicopter from Goma International Airport to Masisi.[2] On October 27, 2008, the Battle of Goma broke out in the city between the Congolese army, supported by MONUC, and Nkunda's CNDP rebels; 200,000 refugees fled the town.[3] Goma was seized by the M23 movement on November 20, 2012.[4] "Tens of thousands" of civilians fled the area.[5] Conditions in Goma Now Our Programs Our Children Our Colleagues |