Congo Rebels Face Some Resistance in Goma, More Peacekeepers Killed 

Residents look on as members of the M23 armed group walk through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
Residents look on as members of the M23 armed group walk through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
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Congo Rebels Face Some Resistance in Goma, More Peacekeepers Killed 

Residents look on as members of the M23 armed group walk through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
Residents look on as members of the M23 armed group walk through a street of the Keshero neighborhood in Goma, on January 27, 2025. (AFP)

Gunfire rippled across east Congo's largest city Goma where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels still faced pockets of resistance from army and pro-government militias on Tuesday, while another four South African peacekeepers were killed.

The rebels marched into the lakeside city of two million people on Monday in the worst escalation since 2012 of a three-decade conflict rooted in the Rwandan genocide and control of natural resources.

Dozens of Democratic Republic of Congo troops had surrendered, but some soldiers and pro-government militiamen were holding out, residents and UN sources said.

People in several neighborhoods reported small arms fire and some loud explosions on Tuesday morning.

"I have heard the crackle of gunfire from midnight until now ... it is coming from near the airport," an elderly woman in Goma's northern Majengo neighborhood, close to the airport, told Reuters by phone.

The UN and global powers fear the conflict could spiral into a regional war akin to those of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 that killed millions, mostly from hunger and disease.

Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance that includes the M23, has suggested the rebels' aim is to replace President Felix Tshisekedi and his government in the capital Kinshasa, more than 1,500 km west of Goma.

In the latest diplomatic efforts, South Africa said its President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame agreed in a phone call on the need for a ceasefire.

But on the ground four more South African peacekeepers in Congo were killed, South Africa's military said, bringing the number of its fatalities in the past week to 13.

Of the latest deaths, three were caught in crossfire between the Congolese army and the M23 on Monday, while another succumbed to wounds from fighting with the rebels, it said.

'POWDERKEG TOWN'

Willy Ngumbi, a bishop in Goma, said bombs had hit a house where priests were staying and the maternity ward of a Catholic hospital on Monday.

"The town is a powderkeg," he said by phone. "The youth are armed and the fighting is now taking place in the town."

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday it had treated 117 injured people, including 86 with bullet wounds, at a hospital in Goma that it supports.

Also on Monday, Congolese soldiers and Rwandan troops exchanged artillery fire near the border, with Rwanda's army reporting five people killed and 26 injured.

The fighting has sent thousands of people streaming out of Goma, which has been a vital regional hub for humanitarian aid for displaced people. Hundreds of thousands have fled fighting since the start of the year - on top of 3 million who were displaced in eastern Congo last year.

Goma is also a gateway for trade of tantalum and tin ores, used in phones and computers.

"The city is in real difficulty and if it hasn’t fallen overnight, it will in the coming days," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told Sud Radio. "Rwanda must put down its weapons, calm must return and dialogue needs to restart."

FAST OFFENSIVE

M23 is the latest in a string of ethnic Tutsi-led, Rwandan-backed insurgencies. Its fighters took up arms again in 2022, a decade after a previous insurgency that briefly captured Goma.

In recent weeks they made swift gains through North Kivu province, on the border with Rwanda, ignoring calls from world leaders to halt their offensive.

Rwanda has dismissed calls for troops to leave, saying its security is threatened and blaming Kinshasa for sabotaging peace efforts. UNexperts say Kigali has deployed 3,000-4,000 troops in eastern Congo to support the M23.

Congo's government has called on international powers to pressure Rwanda, potentially via sanctions, to end the M23 offensive.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Congo president Tshisekedi on Monday, the State Department said. "Secretary Rubio condemned the assault on Goma by the Rwanda-backed M23 and affirmed the United States’ respect for the sovereignty of the DRC," it said.

The UN Security Council was due to discuss the crisis again on Tuesday, diplomats said.

In Kinshasa on Tuesday, dozens of young men burned tires and chanted anti-Rwanda slogans.

Rwanda says ethnic Hutu militias, some with links to the extremists who murdered close to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the 1994 genocide, threaten its security.



Delta Plane Flips Upside Down on Landing at Toronto Airport, 18 Injured

A Delta airlines plane sits on its roof after crashing upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Robins / AFP)
A Delta airlines plane sits on its roof after crashing upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Robins / AFP)
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Delta Plane Flips Upside Down on Landing at Toronto Airport, 18 Injured

A Delta airlines plane sits on its roof after crashing upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Robins / AFP)
A Delta airlines plane sits on its roof after crashing upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Robins / AFP)

A Delta Air Lines regional jet flipped upside down upon landing at Canada's Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday amid windy weather following a snowstorm, injuring 18 of the 80 people on board, officials said.
Three people on flight DL4819 from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport suffered critical injuries, among them a child, a Canadian air ambulance official said, with 15 others also immediately taken to hospitals.
Some of the injured have since been released, Delta said late on Monday.
The US carrier said a CRJ900 aircraft operated by its Endeavor Air subsidiary was involved in a single-aircraft accident with 76 passengers and four crew members on board.
The 16-year-old CRJ900, made by Canada's Bombardier and powered by GE Aerospace engines, can seat up to 90 people. At least one of the two wings was no longer attached to the plane, video showed after the accident.
Canadian authorities said they would investigate the cause of the crash, which was not yet known.
The Delta plane touched down in Toronto at 2:13 p.m. (1913 GMT) after an 86-minute flight and came to rest near the intersection of runway 23 and runway 15, FlightRadar24 data showed.
The reported weather conditions at time of the crash indicated a "gusting crosswind and blowing snow," the flight tracking website said.
Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said late on Monday the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions, but several pilots Reuters spoke to who had seen videos of the incident pushed back against this comment.
US aviation safety expert and pilot John Cox said there was an average crosswind of 19 knots (22 mph) from the right as it was landing, but he noted this was an average, and gusts would go up and down.
"It's gusty so they are constantly going to have to be making adjustments in the air speed, adjustments in the vertical profile and adjustments in the lateral profile," he said of the pilots, adding that "it's normal for what professional pilots do."
Investigators would try to figure out why the right wing separated from the plane, Cox said.

Flights have resumed at Toronto Pearson, but airport president Deborah Flint said on Monday evening there would be some operational impact and delays over the next few days while two runways remained closed for the investigation.
She attributed the absence of fatalities in part to the work of first responders at the airport.
"We are very grateful that there is no loss of life and relatively minor injuries," she said at a press conference.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it was deploying a team of investigators, and the US National Transportation Safety Board said a team of investigators would assist Canada's TSB.
Global aviation standards require a preliminary investigation report to be published within 30 days of an accident.