Government officials in Kinshasa are preoccupied with demands for the reopening of Goma international airport in North Kivu largely controlled by the AFC/M23 rebels.
Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, DRC’s Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, Francophonie, and the Diaspora claims that there is a humanitarian crisis in Kivu which requires urgent intervention.
“A large part of our population in the occupied areas needs this humanitarian assistance. We also know that resources and funding for humanitarian aid are increasingly limited, and therefore there is also a concern for efficiency when it comes to using the resources we have. We cannot afford to abandon the issue of reopening Goma airport,” Kayikwamba said on Thursday.
“We have not abandoned this issue at all. I want to reiterate that the conditional reopening of Goma airport, precisely to facilitate humanitarian access, has been declared a priority by President Félix Tshisekedi,”she added.
She expressed her hope that the leaders of the AFC/M23, would prioritize humanitarianism.
However, the AFC/M23 leadership argues that the humanitarian crisis has ended.
Yannick Tshisola, the chief of staff to the movement’s political coordinator, Corneille Nangaa, asserts that the humanitarian situation in the areas under their control is no longer alarming.
He maintains that the camps for displaced persons around Goma no longer exist and that the population has returned to their villages thanks to the governance implemented by the AFC/M23 since taking control of the city.
The AFC/M23, however, sees this as a case of humanitarian lobbying by France aimed at financially enriching itself at the expense of the population.
Since the occupation of the city of Goma in late January 2025 by the AFC/M23, Goma’s international airport, including Kavumu Airport in Bukavu (South Kivu), have been inoperative.
