On the doorstep of Goma – the site of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping mission in the world – there are signs of surrendered soldiers and fierce battles.

As we walked on the road in front of the United Nations’ main base, we stepped around fatigues, rounds and helmets once belonging to the Congolese army fighting the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.

The rebels now control the strategic city of Goma after fighting for the border post with Rwanda. It sits south of the swathes of mineral-rich mining territory the rebels have been seizing through last year.

We see them packed on the back of trucks still marked by the FARDC logo of the Congolese army.

I ask one man watching from the side of the road what he makes of this extreme shift.

“This is bad!” he says to me discreetly on the side of the road, with our car as cover from the prying eyes of the junior M23 soldiers.

“My family is not good. I am not good – we don’t know what comes next.”

Small groups are meeting the rebels with cheers and clapping.

We cannot tell if it is relief from the Congolese state or a necessary precaution for many who do not want to leave their hometown on the cusp of a new administration.

But before they can settle in and set up a local authority, M23 have time to stop and humiliate their former enemy.

Not just the Congolese troops, but the Romanian mercenaries fighting alongside them.

MONUSCO, the United Nations’s peacekeeping group in the DRC, brokered an evacuation convoy for the paid fighters to go to Rwanda with trucks full of Uruguayan peacekeeping troops watching as M23 led the handover through their newly-captured border.

As the Romanian men pass through in a single file, they are chastised by M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma who taps them mockingly one by one.

“Come on soldier!” he said. “You were fighting for money – we were fighting for our life!”

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I corner him as he flags the buses through – could you have come this far without Rwanda’s support?

He tries to keep busy, and after the fourth time I repeat the question, he yells into my face in French:

“We are a Congolese army, we are Congolese! We fight for a fair and noble cause – we are Congolese. We are not helped by Rwanda!”

It will take more than a feverish denial to undermine the widely known support of Rwanda for M23 – one that has been condemned at the highest levels of the United Nations and senior diplomats from around the world.

As the “Welcome to Rwanda” sign gets closer, the last Romanian mercenary limps across with a wounded leg flanked by a UN security advisor and an Indian medic.

A surreal sight of a man heading home after fighting a war in a foreign country surrounded by Congolese families fleeing the war at home.

At least 30 people have died and 60 have been injured in a stampede at a Hindu festival in northern India.

Images from the scene in the city of Prayagraj, in Uttar Pradesh state, show bodies being stretchered away and rescuers helping those who were hurt.

All 60 people injured have been taken to hospital, according to local police.

Millions of people were attempting to take a holy bath in the river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival when there was an initial stampede at 1am local time (7.30pm UK time) on Wednesday.

Authorities said people trying to escape it were then caught in a second – and more serious – stampede at an exit.

Devotees had congregated to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

Authorities took more than 16 hours to release precise numbers of those injured and killed.

A Rapid Action Force unit, a special team deployed during crisis situations, was sent to the scene.

The state’s most senior official, Yogi Adityanath, made a televised statement later on Wednesday, urging those still planning to bathe in the Ganges to do it elsewhere on the riverbank.

“The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims,” he said.

Around 30 million people had taken the holy bath by 8am local time on Wednesday, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he has spoken to Mr Adityanath, calling for “immediate support measures”, according to the ANI news agency.

Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh – “festival of the Sacred Pitcher” – on Wednesday for the holy dip.

It is regarded as a significant day for Hindus, due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.

The Maha Kumbh festival, which is held every 12 years, started on 13 January, lasts six weeks, and is the world’s largest religious gathering.

Organisers had forecast that more than 400 million people would attend the pilgrimage site over the course of the festival.

Authorities have built a sprawling tent city on the riverbanks, equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets and 11 hospitals.

Stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds can gather in small areas.

The parents of an eight-year-old Australian girl – and 12 other members of their hardline religious sect – have been found guilty of her manslaughter after withholding her diabetes medication.

Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on 7 January 2022 at home in Toowoomba, Queensland, after six days without insulin injections for her type 1 diabetes.

Her father Jason Struhs, 53, mother Kerrie Elizabeth, 49, brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 22, and the leader of the family’s religious group The Saints, Brendan Luke Stevens, 63, were among the 14 convicted over her death.

During the nine-week trial last year, the jury heard the faith healing group, which has been described by many in Australia as a cult, withheld her medication on purpose – believing God would save her.

After his arrest, Elizabeth Struhs’s father told a police officer: “I’m not jumping up and down in joy, but I’m at peace.

“I don’t feel sorry, I feel happy because now she’s at peace and so am I… she’s not dependent on me for her life now. I’m not trapped by diabetes as well.”

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Both he and Stevens were initially charged with murder – but Queensland Supreme Court judge Martin Burns found them guilty of manslaughter instead.

He said the prosecution had failed to prove the pair had shown reckless indifference to life.

“There remained a reasonable possibility that, in the cloistered atmosphere of the church which enveloped Struhs… that he [the father] never came to the full realisation Elizabeth would probably die,” the judge said.

But he found both Elizabeth’s parents had shown an “egregious departure from the standard of care”, with the support and encouragement of the other defendants, he said.

Elizabeth’s older sister Jayde Struths told reporters outside court on Tuesday: “Although we had a good outcome today, I have to acknowledge the system failed to protect Elizabeth in the first place.

“We are only here today because more wasn’t done sooner to protect her or remove her from a credibly unsafe situation in her own home.”

All 14 have been remanded in custody ahead of sentencing on 11 February.

They face life in prison – with the judge urging them to employ lawyers before the sentencing.