By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -Dead bodies were scattered in the streets of Goma and hospitals were overwhelmed with patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, a day after Rwanda-backed rebels marched into the biggest city in eastern Congo, U.N. and other aid agencies said on Tuesday.
The M23 rebels entered Goma on Monday in a major escalation of a three-decade conflict. They were continuing to face pockets of resistance from the army and their backers.
On Tuesday, small arms fire and mortar fire continued in the streets, where many dead bodies could be seen, said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA), citing reports from staff in the city.
“The humanitarian situation in and around Goma remains extremely worrying,” Laerke told a Geneva briefing. “Hospitals in Goma are reportedly overwhelmed, struggling to manage the influx of wounded people,” he added. He said there were also reports of rapes by fighters.
Hundreds of people have been admitted to hospital with gunshot and other wounds, said Adelheid Marschang, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emergency response coordinator for Congo at the same briefing.
“We are hearing reports of health workers being shot at and patients including babies being caught in crossfire,” she said. Already at the weekend, the U.N. agency had counted 600-700 people wounded across Goma hospitals, she added.
The Red Cross said that one of its hospitals had received over 100 patients within 24 hours with head wounds and chest trauma from mortars and shrapnel.
“And while the hospital is overwhelmed, we are still receiving calls from desperate injured people who struggle to access healthcare,” said Patrick Youssef, regional director for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“Very disturbingly, we have seen a significant increase in the number of severely injured children,” he said. Patients are waiting in the corridors for lack of beds while the hospital car park had been converted into a triage centre, he added.
The fighting has been accompanied by a surge in looting with both the ICRC and the World Food Programme (WFP) reporting that medical and food supplies had been stolen.
“Depending on the duration of violence, the supply of food into the city could be severely hampered,” said Shelley Thakral, WFP Spokesperson in the capital Kinshasa.
(Reporting by Emma FargeEditing by Rachel More and Peter Graff)
