‘I can’t cut the signal’: DRC radio boss vows to stay on air as rebels seize key city

His journalists have fled from M23 violence but Patrick Sugira is staying put, saying people depend on his broadcasts

Last Wednesday evening, Patrick Kiroha Sugira sent a text message to a friend via WhatsApp: The security situation is very bad here. We have nowhere to go. I am at the radio."

Within days, Sugira, the director of Horizon community radio station in Rutshuru, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was in hiding with his wife and children and other terrified citizens. The town was one of two overrun by armed rebels on Saturday, in a resurgence of violence in the area that is escalating tensions across the region.