Rwandan-Backed Rebels Strengthen Hold in Eastern Congo
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Friday, January 31st. I'm Christine Arismath. Now, we'll revisit the history of that coup which deposed Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a moment. First, to Congo.

Rwandan-backed rebels known as M23 have consolidated their hold on Goma in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. And once again, the region is on the edge of full-blown conflict. Here's reporter Kate Bartlett.

The Serena Hotel, Goma's five-star establishment, sits on picturesque Lake Kivu and is a favourite haunt of foreign correspondents, UN workers and mercenaries alike. On Thursday, it hosted another group. The Rwandan-backed M23 militia that are now in control of the city held their first press conference.

We are in Goma to stay, Kornil Nyanga, one of the group's leaders, declared. He added that the M23 would, quote, continue the march of liberation to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. The militia group is already advancing rapidly towards another provincial capital, Bukavu. In an address to the nation last night, Congo's President, Felix Chesikedi, vowed his army will prevail.

Be sure of one thing, he said, we will fight and we will triumph. The president stopped short of declaring war on Rwanda, a small neighboring country with outsized clout in the international community.

This conflict has its roots in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which nearly one million, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists. Tutsi rebels, led by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, put an end to the killing, and many Hutu perpetrators fled across the border to Congo. Is there anybody among us who did not see this coming?

Kagame has never acknowledged Rwanda's role in the recent conflict, but many others, including the UN and US, say it is involved. While Kagame claims he's protecting Rwanda, Congo's government says Rwanda aims to pillage its vast mineral wealth. DRC is rich in cobalt and other critical minerals essential for the production of smartphones and other devices.

As the M23 advances, the politicians squabble, and the international community issues calls for calm. It's the Congolese people who suffer, as they have been for decades. Goma was already home to almost one million displaced people. Now, many of them are fleeing war once again. For NPR News, I'm Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg. Now to Myanmar.

Four years ago, Myanmar's military deposed the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She remains in jail, and the country is mired in a brutal civil war largely forgotten by the outside world. Michael Sullivan reports from neighboring Thailand. ♪

On the morning of February 1st, an aerobics instructor in the capital, Nipido, captured the beginning of the coup in real time while filming her routine. Behind her, dozens of military vehicles streamed down the wide boulevard headed for parliament to prevent the elected government from convening. But it didn't take long for the people to resist, plunging the country into turmoil.

Four years later, the United Nations says more than 3.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting, with more than 15 million, nearly a third of the population, facing acute food insecurity.

Mary Callahan is a Myanmar scholar at the University of Washington. I think where we are now is there are pockets of famine all over the country. There are families who are very lucky to have some rice, absolutely no meat, but maybe fish paste,

or an egg for protein. The situation is quite bleak. Not just in contested areas, but in government-controlled areas like Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon,

Where the economy has collapsed, supply chains are in tatters and prices are soaring, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, according to the World Bank. This woman, who wants to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, is a single parent who cares for two elderly relatives with diabetes and heart problems.

She says the price for a pack of 10 blood pressure tablets has soared from just 300 chat to about 12,000 chat since the coup. She spends most of her money on medicine for her parents and has stopped taking hers to save money. Her job and savings are gone. She's selling off her remaining jewelry to survive. In conflict areas, the situation is even worse.

Oh, my God!

The military targets combatants and civilians alike as it battles the insurgents. 29-year-old Nei Chi is a medic for one of the people's defense forces battling the government outside Myanmar's second city, Mandalay. In emergencies, those hurt can't reach proper medical facilities in time to be saved, she says, because of bad roads.

Plus, even if we can get them there, government hospitals won't treat those wounded by the military. And there are a few doctors left there anyway, with most of the medical staff having joined the civil disobedience movement after the coup.

This doctor is one of them. She asked not to be named for security reasons and is secretly treating patients in Yangon. To address the staffing gap, the hunter has allowed less qualified students to pass medical school entry and specialist exams. And now both the quantity and the quality of medical staff have declined. Analysts say the health system has all but collapsed. The shortage of health care facilities countrywide

has also caused TB and malaria to spike, with cholera outbreaks rampant as well, none of which is acknowledged by the military, and all of which, doctors say, pose a risk not just to Myanmar, but to the region in general, with no sign of an end to the civil war in sight. Michael Sullivan, NPR News, Chiang Rai. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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