Global News Podcast - Thousands flee as rebels close in on key DR Congo city

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

UN Secretary General António Guterres has called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces from DR Congo's territory and on the M23 rebel group to stop advancing on Goma. Also: how a random text message ended happily ever after.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin.

I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1, Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Monday, the 27th of January, these are our main stories. The Democratic Republic of Congo has accused Rwanda of declaring war

by sending troops across the border to support a rebel advance on the city of Goma. President Trump says he'll impose emergency tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after it turned back two migrant deportation flights. Lebanon says Israeli troops have killed 22 people as thousands of villagers tried to return to their homes in the south. Also in this podcast, the text sent to a made up mobile number that resulted in marriage. First four digits the same as mine and then the last three digits random and then didn't think anything of it.

What did you send? Just a message saying hello. We begin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the government has accused Rwanda of declaring war by sending its forces to support rebels advancing on the eastern city of Goma, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. Gunfire has been heard in the city centre as the Rwandan-backed rebels close in, despite attempts by the Congolese government forces to fight them off.

Large numbers of Rwandan troops are reported to be pouring across the border to help the M23 rebels, who in recent weeks have made significant territorial gains, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, including these residents. We're especially afraid for our children because if the situation ever gets worse, it will be difficult for them. So we want to spare them. We hear bombs from all sides of our camp for displaced people. That's why I decided to flee so as not to die there. We are going to Goma, but I heard that there are bombs in Goma too. So now we

don't know where to go." If President Chisikedi is no longer able to lead, he should go and make way for those who can. We can't run away every day. He must find a solution so we can go home. Western nations and the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, have called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces from eastern Congo and halt its support for M23 fighters. The calls were made at a special UN Security Council session. Congo's Foreign Minister, Thérèse Kyequamba-Wagner, spoke afterwards. Rwanda has been permitted by the international community, by its donors, by its partners to wreak

havoc in the DRC, in particular in North Kivu, even in the presence of United Nations peacekeeping troops with a robust, one of the most robust mandates of the United Nations. Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, gave us this update. We've been looking at videos and reports coming out of Goma and it's quite difficult to get a picture right across what is a large city of one to two million people, but certainly some videos showing people moving with whatever they can carry along roads. A lot of the people are moving from the outskirts outside Goma, where there are these huge displacement

camps, people who have already been pushed out of their homes, and they're having to move again because they fear that they're not safe where they are, as the rebels get closer and closer to the city. It's difficult to know exactly how close they are and in what kind of numbers, but certainly the sounds of war are there. You can hear gunfire and shelling, but it doesn't look as though the moment that there's been an all out assault over the last day on Goma itself. Tell us about these rebels, why they will be trying to seize Goma and what Rwanda's had to say about this.

So it's a complicated picture, but basically these are a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, which has long complained that Tutsi people living in Eastern Congo are not treated fairly, and in fact in some cases are attacked by Hutu militia. And this is at the root cause of Rwanda's complaint. So earlier we just heard from the Congolese foreign minister minister and she was really blaming Rwanda for everything. Rwanda also had a turn at the Security Council and its representative Ernest Ramucho did not deny backing these M23 rebels, but said the root causes of the conflict have never been addressed and that's Rwanda's security concerns.

Rwanda says that the presence of these Hutu rebels in eastern Congo, rebels that are linked in some way to the Rwandan genocide, is of a grave security concern to Rwanda. And in fact, what's been happening is the Congolese army's been working with these Hutu rebels. So that sort of has enabled Rwanda to say these Hutu rebels are against us as a government, therefore the Congolese government's against us and even the UN peacekeepers are working with the Congolese army so the UN's

against us as well. But there have been accusations that Rwanda is partly backing these rebels because of Congo's mineral wealth and we've heard not just from the head of the UN but the US, France and Britain at this UN Security Council meeting putting pressure on Rwanda to do more to stop this. That's right well the minerals really are at the root of a lot of the conflict across eastern Congo and the M23 is just one of dozens and dozens of armed groups. But you're right there is pressure now, it's come pretty late but but there's now this sudden pressure, this UN Security Council meeting called forward because Goma seemed to be under such threat. But what we don't know is whether Rwanda will listen to this, whether the assault will be called off, or whether this pressure's kind of come too late.

But it certainly is an uncomfortable kind of a message for Rwanda and President Paul Kagame, the spotlight very much on Rwanda's involvement in eastern Congo and its contribution to what is a really dire humanitarian situation. Will Ross. President Donald Trump has threatened Colombia with harsh retaliatory measures after its leader Gustavo Petro turned back two military planes carrying deported migrants. Mr. Trump said he would impose hefty tariffs as well as a travel ban on Colombian officials. Mr. Petro had objected to migrants being sent back on US military planes instead of civilian ones saying they were not criminals and should be

returned with dignity. He has now said he'll send the presidential plane to the US to repatriate the migrants. Brazil has also complained about the treatment of its citizens on US deportation flights after some arrived in handcuffs in Manaus. Our America's regional editor Leonardo Rocha told me more about what the Colombian leader had to say. He published a note on social media saying exactly that, that migration is not a crime and that Colombian nationals should have been returned on civilian planes and he wouldn't accept them otherwise. So those two flights, apparently one of them took off and had to return shortly after and the other didn't even take off from the United States. But

one thing that needs to be said here is this, it's nothing really new. What's new here is the use of military planes. That's new from the United States. But last year, under the Biden administration, there's a record number of people deported from the U.S. Two hundred and seventy-one thousand people were deported, and Colombia came as number five on that list, most of them to Latin America. It's in a way, it's just the way that's being done and the perception that there's more to come that is creating these problems here.

But Mr Trump is not responding well to this. He seems to be in a bit of a collision course with Colombia. He's been making threats against it. Soon after President Petro said that he wouldn't take these migrants back, President Trump announced sanctions against Colombia, very stiff sanctions. He said he will impose emergency tariffs of 25% on all Colombian imports for the first week, will go up to 50% the second week. Also travel ban on government officials and their families, visa sanctions as well, and the American consulate

in Colombia will stop dealing with visas for Monday. So it's a very strong response. And in President Trump's statement, he called Mr. Petro a socialist and unpopular leader. Leonardo Rocha. Well, while the US president has been threatening countries that won't take back migrants, his vice president, JD Vance, has been talking about how he hopes measures back home will have a chilling effect on undocumented workers. Speaking to CBS News, he defended the Trump administration's decision to raid schools and churches as part of its drive to expel millions of illegal immigrants. We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere to protect Americans.

But that also has a knock on effect, a chilling effect arguably, to people to not send their kids to school. I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming into our country. In the churches, you think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are actively hiding criminals from law enforcement? I think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has frankly not been a good partner in common-sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they'll do better. A correspondent in Washington, David Willis,

told me more about what Mr Vance had to say. This was his first interview since taking office and JD Vance defended the flurry of executive orders, Jeanette, surrounding illegal immigration that have come from this new administration over the course of its first week in office, as well as addressing Donald Trump's controversial pardoning of hundreds of January the 6th defendants and the confirmation of the former Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth as defence secretary. Mr Vance was asked by CBS about the impact of lifting a ban on federal agents arresting immigrants near schools and places of worship. Could it have a chilling effect on parents who might now be hesitant to send their children to school? He was asked. To

which he responded, I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming into this country. Under US law, children have a right to public education regardless of immigration status, and schools, hospitals, and churches have previously all been deemed to be sensitive areas and therefore off limits if you like to immigration officials but a statement released by the US Department of Homeland Security just the day after Donald Trump was

sworn into office said that no longer would criminals be able to hide as it put it in America's schools and churches. So what's the reaction been to this? Well Catholic groups have warned that these moves to allow federal agents into schools and churches could foster a climate of what they called fear and uncertainty for those in need. And JD Vance said that as a practicing Catholic himself he was heartbroken by the group's statement, but he went on to accuse them of having ulterior motives. The Vice President suggested that the Catholic Church might be more concerned about the millions of dollars that it receives

every year to help resettle illegal immigrants than it was worried about humanitarian concerns. Are they merely worried about the bottom line, he asked. So already this controversial policy promised by Donald Trump is bringing it into conflict with bodies such as the Catholic Church. David Willis. Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon have been accused of killing at least 22 people who were trying to return home. Lebanon's health ministry also reported that more than 120 others were wounded when Israeli forces opened fire at multiple locations. Beirut says Israeli forces have violated Sunday's ceasefire deadline for withdrawing from southern Lebanon.

Israel says its forces are staying on because its ceasefire deal with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah hasn't been fully implemented. Hugo Bishager reports from Beirut. Revolutionary songs were played and Hezbollah flags waved as residents returned to Ayt al-Shaab in southern Lebanon. For the first time, they were seeing for themselves the destruction caused by more than a year of war. They began travelling back after the end of a deadline for the Israeli withdrawal from

the area and the removal of Hezbollah fighters and weapons from there. But not all invading troops have left. Israel says Lebanon has not fully implemented the deal, which also includes the deployment of Lebanese soldiers to a part of the country long dominated by Hezbollah. Lebanon has accused Israel of delaying its withdrawal. Hezbollah's TV station had encouraged people to return, despite warnings from both the Lebanese and Israeli armies that it was not safe. In several locations, Israeli soldiers opened fire.

The Israeli army said those had been warning shots and did not give details of the incidents. It's not clear how many Israeli troops remain in Lebanon and how long they're planning to stay. This is a country with memories of past foreign occupations. The presence of Israeli troops here is seen as unacceptable and a reason for concern. Hugo Bishaga in Lebanon. Staying in the Middle East, a suggestion by Donald Trump that Egypt and Jordan should take in most of the population of Gaza has been roundly rejected by both countries and by Palestinian leaders.

Mr Trump said that it was time to, in his words, clean out Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble by Israeli forces in the 15-month war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Last week, Mr Trump praised Gaza's potential as a real estate project, given its beautiful seaside location and climate. These Gazans expressed their outrage at his proposal. We will never leave our homeland and we will not give away a single grain of sand in it for anyone, even if we are all killed. It is the land of our ancestors. Death is better than leaving Palestine. They have tried to displace us since 1948. We want to tell the whole world that despite the genocide we have witnessed, despite the

pain we have gone through, we are the owners of this land and we will never leave it. In Israel, far-right politicians have praised Mr Trump's comments. Ohad Tal chairs a religious Zionist party in the Israeli parliament. He wants to solve the problem and not to keep fooling ourselves as we've all done in the past 30 years. Maybe if we will build high fences and we will improve our economy and then that will bring stability and prosperity. Well, that has been proven that it doesn't work. And I think what President Trump has done in the past and is doing now is to think

outside of the box and to try and bring new alternative ideas of how to really solve the problem. Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Nick Beek, says Mr Trump's remarks seem to be upending decades of US foreign policy. For years and years now, Jeanette, you've got the case that the Americans are saying remarks seem to be upending decades of US foreign policy. For years and years now, Jeanette, you've got the case that the Americans are saying that ultimately their foreign policy would lead to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. And now President Trump has been talking about Gaza this week, basically talking about

it in terms of being a piece of real estate. He said it was a phenomenal location on the sea, it had the best weather, but now, this weekend he's saying that it's a demolition site, it's over, that it should be cleaned out and that Palestinians should be given the chance to live somewhere else in peace. And that has prompted these accusations that what he's suggesting is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. And so there's been a lot of condemnation of what he's said notwithstanding the fact these might be musings that the president gave journalists on Air Force One rather than any sort of fully formed policy idea. Yes, Jordan's already reacted very strongly after that conversation with

King Abdullah. I imagine other Arab countries will come out very strongly too and for Palestinians this raises yet another nightmare scenario after 15 months of war. It does absolutely and all through that time many Palestinians have said that they will not leave what is their homeland. The fact that they may be forced or asked to leave is completely unacceptable. We had Hamas today saying that from their point of view, they will continue to oppose any sort of move to remove Palestinians from Gaza. And as you say, Jordan already has 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees. Egypt has said, you know, many times before,

that any sort of forced displacement of Palestinians could in fact jeopardise the whole peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. That was signed back in 1979. So that's the strength of the feeling on the Egyptian side. So given all that, we know that in Israel the reaction from the far right to Mr Trump's comments has been very positive. But what's the wider reaction among Israelis to what he's had to say? I think for a lot of Israelis, this is not the priority at the moment. I was in Tel

Aviv where there was another huge rally and the focus there was on getting the remaining hostages home and ensuring there is a lasting ceasefire. As you say, the far right though, what President Trump's saying is music to their ears because far right politicians, they would like to see Jewish settlers return to Gaza to call that place home. But I think other people along the political spectrum, it's not registering in the same way. And that's adding to the anxieties of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who are still being blocked by Israel from returning to northern Gaza? Yes, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families have been told that they'd be able

to travel to the north and find out what remains of their houses, their communities. But they've been blocked so far from doing that by the Israeli government. That's because they're saying that Hamas has basically broken part of the ceasefire arrangement by not releasing one particular Israeli civilian. One militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has said that they have now agreed that Abel Yehud will be released on Friday in exchange for other Palestinian prisoners being released from Israeli jails. Nick Veek, and a quick reminder that if there's anything you want to know about Donald Trump's first week back in the White House, then do get in touch as we're recording a Q&A special

this week. If you'd like to ask about his actions on immigration, tariffs, pardons, climate change, cryptocurrencies or anything else, then email us. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. And it would be great if you could record your question as a voice note. Thanks. Still to come? We are standing right now in the loft of the Magdeburg barracks in Terezinstadt, or Terezin, that hosted the famous Terezin Cabaret. On this international Holocaust Memorial Day, a Czech-Canadian singer remembers her grandmother who was imprisoned by the Nazis

during the Second World War. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Light stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in.

They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. Let's turn now to Belarus and an exit poll on state media suggests that the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has won the presidential election with 87% of the vote. The outcome was never in doubt in what the exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhonovskaya described as a farce. Mr Lukashenko, who's been in power for more than 30 years, dismissed speculation that he might hand over power to one of his three sons,

although he said a new generation should emerge to lead Belarus by the year 2030. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg, who's in the capital Minsk, told Owen Bennett-Jones more about the election. It was very bizarre actually. I've reported on many elections in many different places and I've seen prime ministers and presidents kind of I witnessed at the polling station in Minsk. So Alexander Lukashenko cast his ballot and then from another room in the building, he gave a four and a half hour press conference live on state television. You know, while the voting was going on, Belarusians were still voting. And here you had candidate Lukashenko dominating state television on the day of the election.

But it was an opportunity to sort of ask him, well, some questions about this controversial vote. So I asked him. The first thing he said to me was, what wretched question have you prepared, like you always do? Yes, OK. To which I replied, good morning. And then I kicked off with, how can you call this a democratic election when your main

rivals are either in prison or in exile? He replied by saying, well, some are in prison and some are in exile, but you're here. Everyone has the right to choose. That is democracy. But of course, if you go back to 2020 and the brutal crackdown launched by the authorities on protesters who were accusing Mr Lukashenko of stealing the 2020 presidential election, personal choice didn't come into it. Some were arrested and jailed, others forced into political exile. And then I pointed out that just a few days ago,

Mr Lukashenko had said, we mustn't shut people's mouths. In other words, we mustn't silence people. But I said your rivals haven't just been kept off the ballot, some of them have been jailed. And in fact there are more than 1200 political prisoners in Belarus right now. I told him isn't it time to open the prison cells and release them. And I listed some of the the most prominent political prisoners people like Viktor Babariko and Maria Kolesnikova and Sergey Tikhanovsky. And he said, well, he said, mouths are one thing, but prison is for people who have opened their mouths too wide and broken the law.

Don't you have prisons in Britain and America? See another quote here. I don't give a damn about the West. I'm willing to talk to the EU but not to bow before you or crawl on our knees. Yes. One of my questions to him was, you know, America, the EU, Britain do not recognize you as the legitimate president of Belarus after what happened after the 2020 election. And I asked him whether he had any hopes that that situation, that attitude would change with the Trump administration. And he

basically said, I don't care, I don't care what you think of me, the most important thing to me is what the people of Belarus think and whether they recognize the election. This is a theme he's come out with for several years now, basically rejecting, dismissing the criticism coming from the West of his government and of his actions. Steve Rosenberg in Belarus. Today is International Holocaust Memorial Day. It's the date on which the Soviet Army entered the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland 80 years ago. During their time in power, the Nazis also confined Jews in many countries

to heavily controlled ghettos. One such ghetto was in Turezjenstadt, also known as Terezin, in what had been Czechoslovakia. Lenka Lichtenberg, a Czech-Canadian singer whose grandmother was imprisoned, was able to bring the poems she wrote to be performed openly in the place they'd been written in secret eight decades ago. Stad or Terezín that hosted the famous Terezín Cabaret and it turned itself into a hub of culture and a place to both create new works and escape from reality. My mother who was between the ages of 14 and 17 when she was here. And my grandmother, Hanna, and her husband, Richard, they were all incarcerated in Terezin for two and a half years. And I do have a feeling that they would have come here. We are forever lost, forever saved.

What is this place? Where have we come to? Those are words by Anna Hanna Frisova, a Czech poet who was imprisoned in the Nazi ghetto of Theresienstadt, or Terezin as it's known in Czech. Lenka was able to return with the poems of her grandmother and those poems she set to music. The Nazis infamously created propaganda films at Terezin to give the impression that it was a spa town full of relaxation and culture, using the camp's actual rich cultural life to pretend to the visiting Red Cross that they treated the Jewish inmates well.

Petr Rih, a guide at Terezín, describes the reality. In the first moment when people came here, were brought here, they were split into the two categories, able to work, unable to work. And sad thing is that who didn't work? Thick people, old people, kids. So especially sick people and young kids were sent to extermination camps very often, as it were. Lenka Lichtenberg's grandparents' relationship was broken by the war, something that is reflected in the poems and in the songs. My grandfather Richard was arrested by the Gestapo,

and he was in prison for six months. By the time they were leaving, going actually to Terezin, things were already bad like this. They do tell a story so much, you know, why would she be memorizing and adapting a poem about saying goodbye to someone leaving the next morning? That sounds very much to me like that would be her husband. It is a very powerful picture into her world and into her emotions.

For Lenka Lichtenberg, returning to sing her grandmother's poems at Terezin is deeply meaningful. Finding the poems in her booklets already made everything very real. I have felt that my grandma and my mom have just come back to me even though they have both passed. Lenka Lichtenberg, a Czech-Canadian singer, ending that report by Michael Rossi. America's foreign intelligence agency, the CIA, has adjusted its official stance on the origins of COVID-19, saying it now believes the virus was more likely to have leaked from a Chinese laboratory. The new assessment is not the result of any new intelligence and comes just days after Donald Trump's appointee,

John Ratcliffe, was confirmed as the CIA's new director. Tom Bailey reports. Until now the CIA had remained on the fence, but now says it favours a lab leak theory, though described it as a low confidence judgement. It means the agency has now joined other bodies, including the FBI and US Energy Department in this assessment. An official said the shift was based on new analysis of existing intelligence. China has previously dismissed speculation about Covid's origins as unhelpful and motivated by politics. Tom Bailey reporting. Now, picture the scene. It's 1998. A teenager has just discovered text messaging after being given his

first mobile phone for his 18th birthday. So he makes up a few random numbers and sends off the message, hello. Well, that one word message resulted in Donovan Shears from Coventry in central England meeting his future wife, Kirsty, from Cleethorpes. Now, after more than 20 years of love and laughter, they're planning to renew their vows on Valentine's Day. They've been speaking to Richard Williams. Showing off to my friends, going, oh, look, I can page other phones. I started sending out random text messages.

So I picked first four digits the same as mine, and then the last three digits random. Probably about five or six different numbers numbers and then didn't think anything of it. What did you send? Just a message saying hello. Kirsty you just got a mobile phone and this ping comes through what happened then? Because I'd only just got the mobile I assumed it was someone I'd give my number to so I

just responded to it like hi who's this and then it came back done and then we started chatting from there. Initially it was just. We would text through the day and then it obviously become more and more frequent. And then at one point, we decided we should phone each other and you can talk to someone but to actually hear their voice is different, isn't it, rather than by SMS. So we did. We started speaking over the phone as well as SMSing during the day. And then eventually it come up to the August bank holiday in 98 and I was like right said to my stepsister I've got to go meet this guy and she was like he could be anyone I was like yeah I know but I was 18 and you know didn't really

think about consequences and just got on a train and came to Coventry to meet Don. So you were quite literally playing the numbers game yeah yeah and then you've got two beautiful kids now. Yep, yep. And they're going to be with you on the Friday, aren't they? They will be. We've told the school all about what we're doing and they were like, yep, it's an exceptional circumstance. Of course your children should be there.

So they're getting an authorised absence and they'll be there on the day. So let's talk about, obviously, Valentine's Day, renewing your vows. Why did you want to do it? We've always spoken about doing it and this is going to be our 23rd year married. When we had the kids, we would want the kids to be there etc and then when this came up it was just like Coff Cathedral, shall we try for it? And it was like yeah what a cool venue. We put our story in and yeah here we are. And what are you looking forward to most about the day Donovan?

Mainly the kids, just to see them see us renew our vows and the whole ceremony and the stories but for them to actually be there and be part of it I think would be magical. Donovan and Kirsty Shears talking about the random text message that led to love and marriage many years ago. And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Janet Jaleel. Until next time, goodbye. cars in the world. Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get roofed one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 Back at Base.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.