Citizens in the city of Goma, North Kivu Province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have held a peaceful protest having grown fed up with the local authorities’ failure to address issues of insecurities in the city.
The city of Goma has recently recorded a growing number of robbery, murder and related crimes with the government and the local authorities having not taken any measures to provide security for the locals.
On Wednesday, the collective of citizen movements and other pressure groups called for a peaceful demonstration this to demand the departure of the mayor of the city of Goma, the senior chief commissioner Kapend Kamand Faustin for his “inaction and ineffectiveness in the face of insecurity” in the city.
The demonstrations started from the Mutinga roundabout with the base point being the provincial governorate where a memorandum should be read and submitted to the provincial authority.
“We demand the unconditional departure of the mayor of the city, justice and reparation for all victims of insecurity in the city of Goma, the demilitarization of the city, the establishment of a participatory task force team able to materialize civil-military collaboration during this period when the city is under threat, the unconditional release of our comrade victim of the state of siege Mwamisyo Ndungo King, arbitrarily sentenced to 5 years, the extreme vigilance of the population in denouncing all person or any suspicious movement observed in our respective avenues.”
Goma continues to be under serious security threat with fighting between the M23 Rebel Group also rapidly approaching to seize the city as fighting with the Congolese army (FARDC) persists in surrounding areas.
