DRCONGO-UNREST

Friends and relatives react as they gather during a funeral at the ITIG Graveyard in Goma on February 4, 2025 where fresh graves have been dug to accomodate victims of the recent violence. Rwandan-backed armed group M23 announced a humanitarian "ceasefire" from Tuesday in DR Congo's perennially explosive east, days before a planned crisis meeting between the Congolese and Rwandan leaders. Last week, the M23 and Rwandan troops seized Goma -- the provincial capital of the mineral-rich North Kivu region that has been blighted by conflict from multiple armed groups for over three decades. Fighting has stopped in the city, which is home to more than a million people, but clashes have spread to the neighbouring province of South Kivu, raising fears of an M23 advance to its capital Bukavu. (Photo by Michel Lunanga / AFP) (Photo by MICHEL LUNANGA/AFP via Getty Images)