French aid worker for UNICEF killed in DR Congo’s Goma, Macron says

A French national working for UNICEF was killed in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.

Macron expressed condolences to the victim’s family.

“A French UNICEF humanitarian worker has been killed in Goma. I extend the nation’s support and sympathy to her family, loved ones and colleagues,” Macron said on X, urging “respect for humanitarian law and for the personnel who are on the ground and committed to saving lives”.

A series of drone strikes hit Lake Kivu and a private residence located about 50 metres (164 feet) from the home of former Congo President Joseph Kabila Kabange, according to AP.

A spokesperson for the M23 rebel group blamed the government for the attack. The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of the mineral-rich Congolese east with Rwanda’s backing, unleashing a fresh spiral of violence in a region long plagued by fighting.

Despite Rwanda and the DR Congo signing a peace deal at US President Donald Trump’s urging in early December, in the latest attempt to end the conflict, clashes have continued at the front.

Blasts and buzzing drones

The Congolese army, which is stationed some several hundred kilometres from Goma, regularly launches long-range drone strikes on the M23’s positions in the east. 

According to security sources, the M23 likewise makes use of explosive drones at the front. 

According to witnesses, the sound of bomb blasts and buzzing drones rang out in several residential neighbourhoods of Goma, a large provincial capital near the border with Rwanda which the M23 seized in a lightning offensive in 2025. 

Humanitarian sources reported a toll of several buildings targeted and several people killed by Wednesday morning.

One of the houses hit was severely gutted, partially burnt and had its roof destroyed, an AFP reporter at the scene saw. 

Shrapnel also hit neighbouring buildings, blowing out their windows.

‘Hole in the roof’

An aid worker close to the house hit told AFP that he had heard the sound of a drone, followed by a loud explosion that blew a “hole in the roof” of the building.

Firefighters, United Nations employees and officials from the M23 were present at the site on Wednesday morning. 

For three decades, the mineral-rich Congolese east has been riven by fighting between dozens of armed groups, with foreign armies wading in from time to time.

A half-dozen ceasefires hoping to end the M23 conflict have been brokered before being broken in short order. 

In early March, the M23 announced the death of one of its spokesmen, Willy Ngoma, in a drone strike near the Rubaya mine in North Kivu province.

The Rubaya mine is under the M23’s control and a key source of revenue for the armed group, which taxes the extraction of and trade in minerals on its patch. 

UN experts believe Rwanda uses the M23 as a tool to control the Congolese east’s rich veins of critical minerals, notably the coltan key to the manufacturer of mobile phones and electric car batteries. 

At the beginning of March, the US announced sanctions against the Rwandan army as a result of its support for the M23.

While denying offering the M23 military backing, Rwanda insists that it faces an existential threat from the presence in the eastern DRC of armed groups linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis. 

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)