DR Congo: Conflict in the east of the country has cost the lives of "more than 7,000 people" since January

The conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed the lives of "more than 7,000 compatriots" since January 2025, a significant proportion of them civilians, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka said in Geneva on Monday, February 25.

"We have not yet been able to identify all of these people, now it is very easy to say that these dead are only soldiers when there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead," she indicated during a press briefing on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council .

"The security and humanitarian situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels," she insisted a little earlier.

For the city of Goma alone, the capital of North Kivu taken by the armed group M23 supported by Rwandan forces, the Prime Minister took up UN sources reporting "more than 3,000 dead".

The fighters subsequently also took control of the provincial capital of South Kivu, Bukavu, and with it control of Lake Kivu.

Judith Suminwa Tuluka said at the podium that out of this total of 7,000 dead, "more than 2,500 bodies" were buried without being identified and that "more than 1,500 bodies are lying around in morgues".

The anti-government M23 movement, supported by several thousand Rwandan soldiers according to UN experts, now controls vast swathes of eastern DRC, a region rich in natural resources and ravaged by more than three decades of conflict.

The rapid advance of the M23 and Rwandan forces has caused thousands of people to flee, and the conflict has worsened an already dire humanitarian situation in the region.