Bukavu, DR Congo: Traders and travellers packed their belongings and paid their fares early on Tuesday for the long boat journey across eastern DR Congo's Lake Kivu, the first sailing between the lake's two main ports for weeks after fighting disrupted the service.
Fighting between M23 fighters and government forces has raged for months in the towns, villages and cities on the DRC side of the lake, which straddles the border with Rwanda.
M23 has taken control of both provincial capitals on the lake -- Bukavu on the southern side fell on Sunday weeks after the fighters captured the city of Goma in the north -- giving them total control of the lake that sits in between the cities.
Passengers lined up at dawn in Bukavu, a city of more than a million people, to board the first boat to Goma, for a journey that takes between four and six hours.
"We are happy, this decision gives us some relief," Lueni Ndale, a worker at a local shipping company, told AFP.
At 0640 GMT the three-storey "Emmanuel" boat, filled with around 100 passengers, left the port of Bukavu.
"I had come to Bukavu to attend a wedding, but unfortunately the events took me by surprise, it was difficult to join my family," said Goma resident Justin Mutabesha who was travelling back to the city.
Bukavu depends in part on agricultural products grown in North Kivu and transported to the city from the port of Goma in the absence of passable roads.
Many of Tuesday's passengers were traders going to Goma to pick up food products and bring them back to resell in Bukavu.
"Life had become difficult for us, it was even difficult to have someone who could lend us money when we were unemployed, I am really happy," said baggage handler Amani Kalimira.
Boat tickets cost between $10 and $27 -- an increase on previous prices because of an increase in fuel prices, Ndale said.
M23 has in recent months has seized swathes of territory in east Democratic Republic of Congo, having once again taken up arms in late 2021, in a country that has been plagued by decades of conflicts.
The UN rights office in Geneva on Tuesday accused M23 of carrying out "summary executions" of children in Bukavu, warning that the situation in eastern DRC was "deteriorating sharply, resulting in serious human rights violations and abuses".
