New Abnormal Begins For East DR Congo's Looted Goma After Siege

Ndosho hospital, capacity 146 beds, has more than 370 wounded people waiting for treatment (Credit: AFP)

Strewn with rubble from mortar and artillery fire, the eastern DR Congo city of Goma awoke on Thursday to a new abnormal -- hiding from bandits and counting the dead.

Fighting has all but ceased between Congolese soldiers and the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group, which captured most of Goma on Sunday -- a dramatic escalation in a mineral-rich region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that has seen decades of conflict involving multiple armed groups.