Refugees, surrendering Congolese soldiers and stranded truckers thronged the Rwandan border on Tuesday, hoping to reach safety after rebels captured the nearby Congolese city of Goma and spurred them to flee.

There were bullets everywhere corpses everywhere', says a young Congolese man to FRANCE 24's correspondent in Rwanda, Clement di Roma. Thousands fled clashes in eastern Congo after Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized control of Goma on Monday (January 28),

M23 rebels on patrol in Goma, eastern Congo, which has reserves of minerals that are needed by the world’s electronics giants © AFP/ Rwanda’s stealth occupation of eastern Congo on x (opens in a new w

A rebel alliance claimed the capture of the biggest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich eastern region this week, pushing back against resistance from government troops backed by regional and UN intervention forces.

Rwanda-backed rebels have claimed they captured eastern Congo’s strategic city of Goma, the hub of a region containing trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that remains largely untapped. Analysts said the M23 fighters aimed to control the city of about 2 million people and perhaps other areas in the region nearly 1,

A rebel alliance spearheaded by the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 militia said it had seized the lakeside city of more than 2 million people.

After a lightning offensive, M23 rebels now control Goma, a large city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Their fury is focused on Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who they accuse of backing the rebels - an accusation long made by the UN. To put it bluntly, a group of UN experts maintains the Rwandan army is in "de facto control of M23 operations",