In the Himbi neighbourhood, the gunfire has decreased in intensity. And the first to move along the deserted avenue are M23 fighters, the new masters of the place along with their allies from the Rwandan forces, whose capture of Goma appears inexorable.
Some of these militiamen are carrying equipment, ammunition and weapons recovered after the rout of Kinshasa's official forces.
The previous day, they had been spotted by the dozen on the same avenue, clearly lost and bewildered by the violence of this putsch. Some with weapons in hand, sometimes firing into the air. Others hastily throwing their uniforms over fences in an attempt to escape capture.
Cloistered at home on Monday beneath a «deluge of fire», residents of the main city in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo timidly repaced the streets on Tuesday, in a state of unparalleled shock.
For several days, electricity and water have been cut off throughout the city.
Despite the sporadic bursts of small arms fire echoing in the surrounding area, residents are hurrying down to fetch water on the shores of Lake Kivu, laden with plastic jerrycans.
Many report having been held at gunpoint the previous day by armed men, either Congolese militiamen or soldiers in complete confusion, after finding themselves encircled in the town, trapped between the lake and the Rwandan border.
« We met some soldiers, they stole everything from us, our phones, even our shoes », recounts Jospin Nyolemwaka to AFP. The latter fled the western outlying districts to take refuge in the city centre.
Uniforms and all distinctive insignia abandoned
These western districts, having fallen under the control of the M23 putschists, were also the scene of intense fighting. On Tuesday morning, numerous corpses were lying in a street in the Keshero district. Some were in Congolese army uniforms, others in civilian clothes.
In Ndosho, a neighbouring district that has also fallen to the M23, security has returned and a huge crowd is pressing at the doors of a humanitarian aid warehouse.
Left unprotected, however, it was thoroughly looted. The villagers, deprived of food and water for many long days, rushed inside, taking everything they could carry. Bundles of tiles, mattresses, sacks of flour stamped «USAID», the US Agency for International Development.
Abandoned by the police, the city is prey to violent looting, according to multiple witnesses.
In the city centre, which was made difficult to access on Tuesday due to the persistent fighting there, the streets are littered with uniforms, boots and bulletproof vests abandoned by Kinshasa's forces, according to a humanitarian source speaking on condition of anonymity.
She recounts that 20 to 30 bodies are piled up in front of the city's main hospital and lines of prisoners are walking back up the streets, escorted by M23 fighters.
Under a hail of fire
From Monday, heavy artillery detonations and bursts of automatic gunfire echoed for endless hours, notably in the city centre, one of the most affluent neighbourhoods close to the Rwandan border.
Mortars, rockets and bullets of all calibres rained down on homes, administrative buildings and sites occupied by international NGOs, while certain units of the regular Congolese army put up fierce resistance against Rwandan troops, who are renowned as being vastly superior in both training and weaponry.
Trapped by this intense fighting, the Congolese and foreign civilian population alike spent days and nights of anguish in total uncertainty about their future, deprived of telephone networks and the internet, having been cut off for several days.
Everyone remained holed up in makeshift shelters, fearing stray bullets or shrapnel, as well as widespread looting.
Since this Tuesday, the M23 armed factions have been stationed in front of the governorate, the seat of the deposed provincial authority. A few onlookers wander about on the pavement opposite, completely bewildered.
According to the villagers who agree to speak, the M23 militiamen are disciplined but ask civilians to show them their bare shoulders, hunting for any rifle strap marks left on the skin.
« They like being applauded, so we come and applaud them », joked a local resident.
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