Goma

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For other uses, see Goma (disambiguation).

Province	Nord-Kivu
Ville de Goma
Location in the Congo
Government
- Mayor	Polydor Windi Kwawmrwha
Area
- City	75.72 km² (29.2 sq mi)
- Land	75.72 km² (29.2 sq mi)
Population (2004)
- City	249,862
Time zone	DRC2 (UTC+2)

Goma Church in 2005

Goma is a city of 160,000 in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Located in the Western Rift of the Great Rift Valley, Goma neighbors the active Nyiragongo Volcano directly to its north, and hugs the coast of Lake Kivu to its south. The city lies next to the Virunga National Park and has a small airport. It is connected to the town of Kisangani and the rest of the country via National Road No. 2. The city was known for its nightlife.

Goma was one of the locations Hutu Rwandans fled to during the genocide of 1994 (the Rwandan provisional government being based in neighbouring Gisenyi). From July 13 to July 14, 1994, 10,000–12,000 refugees per hour crossed the border into Goma as the Great Lakes refugee crisis took shape. The massive influx created a severe humanitarian crisis, as there was an acute lack of shelter, food and water. Shortly after the arrival of nearly one million refugees, a deadly cholera outbreak claimed thousands of lives. In 1997 and 1998, government forces from Rwanda stormed the camps at Goma, resulting in thousands of additional deaths.

However, according to humanitarianism critic Alex de Waal, using the term "refugee," applied to the movements to Goma, Ngara District of Tanzania, and Bukavu, Zaire, is misleading. "These enormous exoduses," he writes, "[...] were not the familiar unplanned flight of civilians caught up in a war, but rather the planned exodus of a population under political direction, to seek sanctuary abroad and provide a base from which the architects of the genocide could regroup and attack Rwanda again. The exodus included the flight of virtually the entire extremist government and most of the Rwandan armed forces" (195, Famine Crimes). Furthermore, "the victorious RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front, who were putting an end to the genocide] would inherit a deserted country." Humanitarian organizations responding to the Rwandan genocide has been widely criticized for such naive and dogmatic engagements with deeply political issues beyond their scope.

Volcanic fissures from Nyiragongo extend underneath the streets and there is a possibility that Lake Kivu may experience a limnic eruption. In 2002, Nyiragongo erupted, sending a stream of lava through the center of the city. The lava destroyed 40% of the city and paved over part of the airport's runway. In 2005, volcanic activity again threatened the city.