GOMA is a scene of lawlessness as rebels fry to impose order on a town whose population is starving and where nobody is sure who is in control.
The Rwandan authorities yesterday allowed the first journalists to cross the border into the Zairean city after the last of the bodies had been cleared from the streets.
Small groups looted shops and houses openly while the majority queued outside the town's agricultural co-operative store for the meagre rations that were available.
People ran through the streets with crates of Coca-Cola, furniture, DIY tools and suitcases of stolen goods. Occasionally armed men fired to scare them away. The streets are covered in rubbish and occasional bullet cartridges, testimony to the fighting which saw this town fall into rebel hands last weekend.
"We don't care what soldiers are here. Our problem is food and medicine," a man in his 30s said.
But nobody is sorry the rebels have won. "Nobody knows who is in control. We don't have a leader, but Goma is free," another man said. "The Zairean soldiers killed and looted, then gave their guns to civilians who did the same. The new soldiers could not be worse."
Armed men in civilian clothes roamed the streets. We met Zaireans (presumably Tutsi Banyamulenge rebels), Rwandans and a Ugandan. The Rwandan government denies its troops are in Goma, and the Ugandan government has issued a similar denial.
This ad-hoc force has routed the Zairean army and is now trying to impose order on the town.
A man with a rifle brought five terrified youths out of a warehouse. The youths carried brushes and tools they had looted. The man with the gun fired a shot into the air and told them to sit down in line. They sat with their arms up in surrender.
The man walked down the line shouting at the youths and kicking each one in the head. Then he stood in front of them for a few moments before telling them to go. They ran.
Another group of looters carrying heavy suitcases were cornered by a jeep bearing the legend "World Food Programme". Armed men jumped out of the jeep, made them sit on the ground and punched and kicked them. They bundled them into the jeep and drove off.
The rebels have commandeered the new four-wheel-drive vehicles abandoned by the UN and aid agencies when they left Goma last week. An open truck passed carrying two dozen men wearing thick plastic clothing and rubber gloves. It was followed by an earth-digger.
They had been burying the corpses, they said. Yesterday they buried 50, the previous day 200.
Everybody gives a different death toll, ranging from 300 to 1,000. "When the shooting stopped we came out and saw people dead. The soldiers had gone. We don't know who killed them," one man said.