A rebel-held Congolese city uses damaged banknotes due to a cash shortage

BUKAVU, Congo (AP) — In the city of Bukavu in eastern Congo, Alain Mukumiro argues in a small wooden hut with a shopkeeper who refuses to take his money.

Like many in the rebel-controlled city, Mukumiro is using older, hole-punched banknotes that have been patched up and put back into circulation because of a shortage of new and intact bills.

“All my money has serial numbers, but they refuse it,” Mukumiro said, upset about his ordeal.

Mukumiro, a fridge technician, said his family faces yet another night without food, like many in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group captured the city in February following an escalation of fighting between the insurgents and Congolese forces in the country's mineral-rich east. Congolese authorities closed the city’s banks as the conflict intensified, leading to a shortage of cash in the region.

The perforated notes appear to be old bills that the banks intended to destroy to take them out of circulation. It's unclear how they went back onto the market, but residents suspect they were stolen from bank buildings during the rebel takeover.

The older bills exchange for new ones at a rate of about 10-to-1, said Ruboneka Mirindi Innocent, one of several local residents who now work on the black market as money-changers.

“We keep these banknotes because we don’t know what else to do, it’s just to help each other out,” he said.

The fighting earlier this year worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced and more towns and cities falling under the control of the rebels.

Banks have remained closed in Bukavu and and other key cities in the region, such as Goma, preventing the cities' residents from accessing cash. That has made life difficult in Bukavu, which once was booming with economic activity.

Having both intact and patched up notes in circulation at the same time has resulted in confusion and tensions between businesses and customers.

“It’s a real headache because some sellers accept them and others don’t,” said Mukumiro, 36. The father-of-three and his family are running out of ideas to cope as businesses decline the hole-punched banknotes — the only bills he has left.

Zihalirwa Rutchababisha, who owns a repair equipment business, said he does not accept the busted banknotes to avoid any loss.

“We are also facing the same situation as them,” Rutchababisha said about his customers caught up in the situation. “If I take them, I won’t be able to use them to purchase supplies and that would put me at a loss.”

Rutchababisha's $120 weekly profit last year has already plummeted to $20 a week under the M23, mainly as a result of dwindling sales.

In the rebel-held territories including Bukavu, several state employees once paid in cash say they now get paid via online transfers.

But this solves the problem for a select few. The state employees only account for about 2% of Bukavu’s population of over 1.3 million. Most of the city’s residents work in the informal sector and are paid in cash.

David Kyanga, a professor of economics at Bukavu’s Higher Institute of Commerce, said the only solution is for the M23-controlled cities to adopt the defective banknotes as valid means of payment in the absence of cash supplies from Congolese banking authorities.

The M23 could calm tensions by informing people that the hole-punched banknotes are valid, he said.

Last week, Patrick Busu Bwasingwi Nshombo, the M23-appointed governor of South Kivu province, asked residents to exchange their perforated notes in one of the banks the rebels opened.

But Nshombo quickly suspended the operation days later, saying the bank agents were overwhelmed by the load of banknotes brought forward to be changed.

Congo's government spokesperson in Kinshasa Patrick Muyaya said Thursday that the authorities will not send banknotes or reopen banks in rebel-held territories like Bukavu.

“No bank can open its doors in a situation of insecurity like what is happening in areas occupied by the M23,” Muyaya said at a press conference.

He questioned how banks could work with M23 when it faces U.S. Treasury sanctions.

“We don’t know who will save us,” Mukumiro said. “The government in Kinshasa turns a blind eye, and the liberators also watch the situation without taking action.”

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo contributed to this report.

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A close-up of perforated notes, which are rejected in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friday, Aug 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

Vendors are seen at a market in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friday, Aug 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

A currency exchanger buys perforated notes that are rejected by people in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friday, Aug 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

A customer pays for a service with perforated notes, which are rejected in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friday, Aug 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

A close-up of perforated notes, which are rejected in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friday, Aug 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro hit a bus carrying mineworkers and killed at least a dozen people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place on Wednesday and Thursday.

The strike injured several more people and sparked a fire that was subsequently put out, according to the emergency services.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said it owned the bus and accused Russia of carrying out “a large-scale terrorist attack on DTEK mines in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” whose capital is Dnipro.

“The epicenter of one of the attacks was a company bus transporting miners from the enterprise after a shift in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” the company said in a Telegram post.

The strike came days after U.S. President Donald Trump said the Kremlin had agreed to temporarily halt the targeting of the Ukrainian capital and other cities, as the region suffers under freezing temperatures that have brought widespread hardship to Ukrainians.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal on Sunday called the strike in Dnipro “a cynical and targeted attack on energy sector workers," and said it occured near the Ternivska mine east of the city.

Hours earlier, Ukraine's emergency services reported that Russian attack drones injured six people at a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, southern Ukraine, on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. had been expected to meet Sunday in Abu Dhabi to continue negotiations aimed at ending Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. But on Sunday morning, Zelenskyy announced that they would take place next week instead.

“We have just had a report from our negotiating team. The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set: Feb. 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi. Ukraine is ready for substantive talks, and we are interested in an outcome that will bring us closer to a real and dignified end to the war,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. or Russian officials.

On Saturday afternoon, top Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev said he had held a “constructive meeting with the U.S. peacemaking delegation” in Florida.

Officials have so far revealed few details of the talks in Abu Dhabi, which are part of a yearlong effort by the Trump administration to steer the sides toward a peace deal and end almost four years of all-out war.

While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle with Washington’s calls for a compromise, Moscow and Kyiv differ deeply over what an agreement should look like.

A central issue is whether Russia should keep or withdraw from areas of Ukraine its forces have occupied, especially Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland called the Donbas, and whether it should get land there that it hasn’t yet captured.

Earlier on Sunday, Russian attack drones struck a maternity hospital in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian emergency service reported.

In a Telegram post, it said the strike wounded three women in the hospital in Zaporizhzhia, and also sparked a fire in the gynecology reception area that was later extinguished. Regional administration head Ivan Fedorov later said the number of injured had risen to six.

The Kremlin confirmed Friday it agreed to hold off striking Kyiv until Sunday, but refused to reveal any details, making it difficult for an independent assessment of whether the conciliatory step had indeed taken place.

In the past week, Russia has struck energy assets in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and in Kharkiv in the northeast. It also hit the Kyiv region on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring four.

Overnight into Sunday, Russia launched 90 attack drones, with 14 striking nine locations, Ukraine’s air force said in a Telegram post. A woman and a man were killed in an overnight drone strike in Dnipro, according to local administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Russian shelling also hit central Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, soon after 7 a.m., seriously wounding a 59-year-old woman, according to a Facebook post by the municipal military administration.

Russia's Defense Ministry on Sunday morning said its forces had used operational-tactical aviation, attack drones, missile forces and artillery to strike transport infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces.

In a separate post Sunday, it said that Russian air defenses shot down 21 Ukrainian drones flying over southwestern and western Russia. It did not mention any casualties or damage.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Veterans of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces serve free hot meals in a residential neighborhood for people without power in their homes in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.(AP Photo/Vladyslav Musiienko)

Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev, left, gestures speaking to U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner prior to their meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, left, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, second left, Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev, second right, and Trump's envoy Jared Kushner talk to each other prior to their meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a joint press conference with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)