World

Rebels Backed by Rwanda Close In on Major City in Congo

Published

1 year ago

January 24, 2025

Rebels Backed by Rwanda Close In on Major City in Congo

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have surrounded the eastern city of Goma, in one of the sharpest escalations in years of a conflict that has pitted the Central African country against its neighbor Rwanda.

On Thursday, fighting raged between rebels from the Rwanda-backed M23 group and Congolese forces in the town of Saké, the last major army position before Goma, a provincial capital with more than 2 million people. On Tuesday, M23 captured Minova, a key town along one of Goma’s main supply routes.

Goma’s fall would be a major milestone for M23. The group captured the city and held it for two weeks in 2012, but withdrew after Rwanda came under intense international pressure to stop backing the militia. The United States and United Nations say Rwanda funds and directs the M23, charges that Rwanda has denied.

In late 2013, the Congolese Army and United Nations forces quickly defeated the rebel group, which lay dormant afterward for almost a decade.

M23 has since surged back, starting in late 2021, dealing the Congolese Army a series of defeats. At the same time, peace talks spearheaded by Angola, Congo’s southwestern neighbor, have stalled, and the fate of U.N. peacekeepers stationed in eastern Congo was until recently up in the air, with their mandate renewed in December for another year.

Goma has long been a refuge for more than a million civilians fleeing violence from M23 militiamen, Congolese forces and other armed groups in the region.

The rebels launched a major offensive in eastern Congo this year, and now the region is increasingly cut off. Rebels control the land immediately to Goma’s north and west. On its east lies the border with Rwanda. Its south is demarcated by Lake Kivu.

Rebels have also made gains in other parts of North and South Kivu provinces, which include two other major cities, Butembo and Bukavu. M23 has made the capture of Kavumu airport another main objective, according to U.N. intelligence. Government-allied troops have used the airport to support the Congolese armed forces.

Wounded civilians fleeing Saké by foot and on motorcycles arrived at a Goma hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday morning. Abdou Rahamane Sidibé, a senior surgeon with the group, said he and his colleagues have been treating twice as many civilians over the past few weeks than they did on average last year.

“There was too much bombing,” said Hawa Amisi, 52, who fled with only a thin mattress, a bottle of water and four of her children. Ms. Amisi, who had been separated from her husband in the fighting, said she saw dead bodies lying in the street as they fled.

Bruno Lemarquis, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official in Congo, said 2025 would be “a difficult year” because humanitarian needs are likely to rise, and funds are expected to dwindle.

The United States — traditionally Congo’s largest humanitarian donor — is expected to slash aid under the new Trump administration, humanitarian officials and experts say. “Even before the new U.S. administration came in, we were told that U.S. humanitarian support would be slashed by a third,” Mr. Lemarquis said.

The conflict in eastern Congo — an area about the size of Michigan — was once labeled Africa’s World War. It has been going on since the 1990s, and has involved dozens of armed groups, of which M23 is currently dominant.

Rwanda claims M23 is fighting for the rights of Congo’s Tutsis — the ethnic group targeted by extremists from Rwanda’s Hutu majority in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed.

But many Congolese see the rebel advance as an invasion of their country by a foreign power.

Now equipped with high-tech weapons, according to a recent U.N. report, M23 rebels are trying to establish a long-term presence in the region. They train police, set up courts, collect taxes and issue birth certificates, experts say, and have assassinated several traditional leaders, replacing them with officials favorable to their cause.

Most observers say M23 wants land and Congo’s valuable rare minerals such as coltan, a metallic ore used to produce tantalum, which is in smartphones and laptops. Last April, M23 seized mines in Rubaya — one of the world’s biggest sources of coltan.

As the rebels have conquered more territory over the past few years, the violence has reached new heights.

Thousands of children have been killed, maimed and forced to become child soldiers. Serious injuries caused by heavy artillery have increased. Many of the victims are children.

Sexual violence has reached extreme levels. In 2023, Doctors Without Borders treated more than 25,000 survivors of sexual violence — the highest number ever recorded in the country. Numbers for the first half of 2024 were even higher.

More than 240,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes since the start of this year, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, as M23 rebels have launched new offensives in the eastern regions of North Kivu province, where Goma sits, and South Kivu. They join 4.6 million people who were already displaced in Congo’s east.

Saikou Jammeh contributed reporting from Dakar, Senegal.

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World

Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 50 people

Published

47 minutes ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 50 people

State media says Israeli attack on girls’ school in the city of Minab in the south of the country kills dozens.

Published On 28 Feb 2026

An Israeli strike has hit an elementary girls’ school in Minab, a city in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, killing at least 53 people, according to state media, as the immediate civilian cost from Israel and the United States’ huge bombardment of Iran comes into sharper focus.

Workers are continuing to clear wreckage from the site, where 63 others have been injured on Saturday, said Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. The strike is part of a wave of joint US-Israeli military attacks across Iran that has triggered an outbreak of regional violence.

Trump says he is directing federal agencies to cease use of Anthropic technology

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Trump says he is directing federal agencies to cease use of Anthropic technology

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he was directing every federal agency to immediately cease all use of Anthropic’s technology, adding there would be a six-month phase out for agencies such as the Defense Department who use the company’s products.

World

UN Human Rights Council chief cuts off speaker criticizing US-sanctioned official

Published

12 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

UN Human Rights Council chief cuts off speaker criticizing US-sanctioned official

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) abruptly cut off a video statement after the speaker began criticizing several United Nations officials, including one who has been sanctioned by the Trump administration. The video message was being played during a U.N. session in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday morning.

Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the and president of Human Rights, called out several U.N. officials in her message, including U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who is the subject of U.S. sanctions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Albanese July 9, 2025, saying that she “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”

“That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” Rubio added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Francesca Albanese (Getty Images)

“I was the only American U.N.-accredited NGO with a speaking slot, and I wasn’t allowed even to conclude my 90 seconds of allotted time. Free speech is non-existent at the U.N. so-called ‘Human Rights Council,’” Bayefsky told Fox News Digital.

Bayefsky noted the irony of the council cutting off her video in a proceeding that was said to be an “interactive dialogue,” an event during which experts are allowed to speak to the council about human rights issues.

“I was cut off after naming Francesca Albanese, Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti for covering up Palestinian use of rape as a weapon of war and trafficking in blatant antisemitism. I named the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who is facing disturbing sexual assault allegations but still unaccountable almost two years later. Those are the people and the facts that the United Nations wants to protect and hide,” Bayefsky told Fox News Digital.

“It is an outrage that I am silenced and singled out for criticism on the basis of naming names.”

Bayefsky’s statement was cut off as she accused Albanese and Navi Pillay, the former chair of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and Chris Sidoti, a commissioner of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She also slammed Khan, who has faced rape allegations. Khan has denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Had her video message been played in full, Bayefsky would have gone on to criticize Türk’s recent report for not demanding accountability for the “Palestinian policy to pay to kill Jews, including Hamas terror boss Yahya Sinwar who got half a million dollars in blood money.”

When the video was cut short, Human Rights Council President Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro characterized Bayefsky’s remarks as “derogatory, insulting and inflammatory” and said that they were “not acceptable.”

“The language used by the speaker cannot be allowed as it has exceeded the limits of tolerance and respect within the framework of the council which we all in this room hold to,” Suryodipuro said.

The Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 26, 2025. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

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In response to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, Human Rights Council Media Officer Pascal Sim said the council has had long-established rules on what it considers to be acceptable language.

“Rulings regarding the form and language of interventions in the Human Rights Council are established practices that have been in place throughout the existence of the council and used by all council presidents when it comes to ensuring respect, tolerance and dignity inherent to the discussion of human rights issues,” Sim told Fox News Digital.

When asked if the video had been reviewed ahead of time, Sim said it was assessed for length and audio quality to allow for interpretation, but that the speakers are ultimately “responsible for the content of their statement.”

“The video statement by the NGO ‘Touro Law Center, The Institute on Human Rights and The Holocaust’ was interrupted when it was deemed that the language exceeded the limits of tolerance and respect within the framework of the council and could not be tolerated,” Sim said.

“As the presiding officer explained at the time, all speakers are to remain within the appropriate framework and terminology used in the council’s work, which is well known by speakers who routinely participate in council proceedings. Following that ruling, none of the member states of the council have objected to it.”

Flag alley at the United Nations’ European headquarters during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 11, 2023. (Denis Balibouse/File Photo/Reuters)

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While Bayefsky’s statement was cut off, other statements accusing Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing were allowed to be played and read in full.

This is not the first time that Bayefsky was interrupted. Exactly one year ago, on Feb. 27, 2025, her video was cut off when she mentioned the fate of Ariel and Kfir Bibas. Jürg Lauber, president of the U.N. Human Rights Council at the time, stopped the video and declared that Bayefsky had used inappropriate language.

Bayefsky began the speech by saying, “The world now knows Palestinian savages murdered 9-month-old baby Kfir,” and she ws almost immediately cut off by Lauber.

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“Sorry, I have to interrupt,” Lauber abruptly said as the video of Bayefsky was paused. Lauber briefly objected to the “language” used in the video, but then allowed it to continue. After a few more seconds, the video was shut off entirely.

Lauber reiterated that “the language that’s used by the speaker cannot be tolerated,” adding that it “exceeds clearly the limits of tolerance and respect.”

Last year, when the previous incident occurred, Bayefsky said she believed the whole thing was “stage-managed,” as the council had advanced access to her video and a transcript and knew what she would say.

Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.