Nurses at the general hospital in Fizi, a town ringed by steep highlands in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC), South Kivu province, hurried the wounded soldier into surgery after he was brought in slumped on the back of a motorbike.
He was shot in both legs on the front line in the mountains north of town, where clashes between the army and rebel groups have surged in recent weeks.
The fighting, unfolding away from urban areas and largely overlooked by international mediators, is drawing in more forces from all sides in the war in eastern DRC, with the potential to further complicate efforts by United States (US) President Donald Trump’s administration to bring peace and Western minerals investments to the region.
Earlier this week, the AFC, M23 rebel group invoked the fighting as justification for a drone attack on Kisangani airport, hundreds of kilometres from the front lines, calling it retaliation for government aerial attacks on South Kivu villages.
DRC’s army has not commented on the drone strike or on the rebels’ claims that it attacked villages.
Meanwhile, the casualties continue to mount.
The hospital in Fizi, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, was caring for 115 wounded patients when a Reuters journalist visited at the end of January, more than four times its 25 bed capacity.
“Most of our patients have injuries in their upper or lower limbs, they often arrive with wounds that are already infected because of limited facilities on the frontline,” Richard Lwandja, a surgeon, said.
AFC, M23 staged a lightning advance early last year and in February 2025 seized Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, before advancing southward again in December to briefly take Uvira on the border with Burundi.
The rebels withdrew a few days later under pressure from the United States, which brokered a peace accord between DRC and Rwanda in June.
The United Nations and Western powers say Rwanda backs AFC, M23, even exercising command and control over the group, though Rwanda denies this.
The recent fighting has centred on the highlands around Minembwe in Fizi territory, where the army has launched an operation against AFC, M23 and its local ally, the Twirwaneho, a group formed by DRC Tutsi known as Banyamulenge.
–Reuters–
