(28 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Goma, DR Congo – 27 February 2025
1. Various of the closed Congolese Central Bank in Goma
2. Wide of bag shop in Goma’s market
3. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Gaston Mumbere, Goma resident:
“We are suffering a lot, and our families are also victims of the lack of circulation of money between people. The banks are not functioning, and now we are realizing that weapons kill people, but that hunger will also kill us.”
4. Wide of shuttered Bank
5. Various of Lievin Karu counting money
6. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Lievin Karu, Goma currency trader:
“We work, but the money isn’t visible on the ground. As a currency trader, we often work with banks; unfortunately, they’re closed following the problems that have arisen. We try, but the situation is not good.”
7. Pan of man walking with goods on his head through market
8. Various of Collette Musumba
9. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Collette Musumba, bean seller at Virunga market, Goma:
"We used to earn up to 100,000 Congolese francs ($36), but today it’s hard to earn even 30,000 Congolese francs ($11). I don’t sell much in a day, and I close the goods to go home and cook for the children.”
10. Various of people in Virunga market
11. Various of Professor Deogracias Bengehya teaching students at the University of Goma
12. SOUNDBITE (French) Deogracias Bengehya, Professor of Economics:
“This situation has a very negative impact on the economy, on traders who have to import goods to resell, who have to import raw materials and who need their financial resources, their currency, to carry out these operations.”
13. Wide of people sitting next to a closed bank
14. Wide of closed bank
15. Professor Deogracias Bengehya teaching
16. SOUNDBITE (French) Deogracias Bengehya, Professor of economics:
“Here, customers no longer trust banks or MFIs (microfinance institutions). MFIs will be in trouble even compared to banks. Why is that? Because the banks have representatives elsewhere, but there are MFIs that are not represented elsewhere and are only in Goma.”
17. Wide of Virunga market, Goma
STORYLINE:
The once bustling streets of Goma, the capital of North Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo were markedly silent on Thursday.
Businesses are struggling to survive, financial transactions are almost impossible, and the population has been deprived of its means of subsistence.
Gaston Mumbere, a resident of Goma, wonders how he will pay his bills at the end of February. “We are suffering a lot, and our families are also victims of the lack of circulation of money between people. The banks are not functioning, and now we are realizing that weapons kill people, but that hunger will also kill us”, he said.
Goma, the capital of North Kivu, has been experiencing an unprecedented economic and financial crisis since the armed group M23 took over the city last month.
The closure of banks and cooperatives, a direct consequence of the prevailing insecurity in the city, is paralyzing monetary transactions and undermining the daily lives of its two million inhabitants.
In Virunga, the town’s main market, sellers struggle to find buyers. Sometimes they go home with nothing. "We used to earn up to 100,000 Congolese francs ($36), but today it’s hard to earn even 30,000 Congolese francs ($11). I don’t sell much in a day, and I close the goods to go home and cook for the children”, said Collette Musumba, bean seller at Virunga market.
On Wednesday, February 12, the governor of North Kivu, appointed by the M23 alliance, met in Goma with the heads of the banking institutions.
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