France’s president said a French aid worker with UNICEF was killed after M23 rebels said a ‘war drone’ had struck the city.
A French aid worker from the United Nations children’s agency was killed in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, France’s president said, after M23 rebels, who control the city, launched an airstrike on a house there.
“A French humanitarian from UNICEF has been killed in Goma,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday at X. “I call for humanitarian law and respect for personnel who are on the ground and committed to saving lives,” he said.
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Goma is the capital of the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a strategic city captured from government control by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in January 2025.
Since taking up arms again in 2021, M23 has seized territory in the mineral-rich Congolese east, unleashing a new spiral of violence in a region long plagued by fighting.
M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka said the drone strike hit a residential building in the center of Goma early Wednesday. French citizen and UNICEF employee Karine Busset was in the residence at the time and was killed, he said. The UN has yet to comment.
A video shared online and verified by Al Jazeera showed part of the roof of the house destroyed and a trail of smoke coming from one side. Sources on the ground, speaking to Al Jazeera, confirmed the structural damage.
An aid worker near the house told AFP news agency that he heard the sound of a drone, followed by a large explosion that blew a “hole in the roof” of the building.
Local residents and humanitarian sources told AFP several sites were hit and several people may have died.
Kanyuka said a “war drone” was used against the city and blamed the Congolese government for the attack.
“This morning, the city of Goma was hit by a drone-led terrorist attack … targeting the United Nations and the European Union,” he wrote on X.
“This act of aggression targets a densely populated urban area with an intolerable provocation and willfully puts thousands of innocent civilians at risk,” Kanyuka said.
The Congolese government has yet to comment on M23’s claims.
‘Violations’ of the Peace Agreement
The incident comes a day after DRC’s army, also known as FARDC, said it shot down two drones belonging to Rwandan forces and “their allies” after they entered Congolese airspace in neighboring South Kivu province.
The X account affiliated with the FARDC said the drones were downed in Mykenge “after illegally violating Congolese airspace in the Minembwe region”.
“This act of aggression is a new provocation and a violation of the Washington Accord,” it said, adding that Congolese forces were “vigilant, disciplined and ready to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC.”
M23 rebels captured the capitals of North and South Kivu provinces and other cities last year.
They have also advanced in several areas in the resource-rich east, after signing an agreement with the Congolese government in Qatar last year and a separate agreement signed between the DRC and Rwanda in the United States on December 4.
The DRC’s government, the UN and the US all accuse Rwanda of supporting M23, which Kigali denies facing threats from armed groups in the DRC.
On March 2 the US sanctioned Rwanda’s military and four of its senior officers, accusing them of supporting M23.
In response, Kigali lamented the sanctions as “one-sided” and defended its military.
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