Sawt Falasteen - Rwanda-backed M23 advances in DRC as volunteers rally to fight back

The group captured most of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, earlier this week and has vowed to march all the way to the capital Kinshasa.

The weeks-long offensive has marked a dramatic escalation in a region that has seen conflict involving dozens of armed groups claim the lives of an estimated six million people over three decades.

Rwanda says its primary interest is to eradicate fighters linked to the 1994 genocide but is accused of seeking to profit from the region's reserves of minerals used in global electronics.

The crisis has rattled the continent and international observers, with a southern African regional bloc holding an emergency summit in Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Friday.

M23 fighters are now moving south, with local sources telling AFP on Thursday that fighting was concentrated some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Kavumu.

The city has a strategic military airfield and is where the Congolese army has laid down its defensive line just 40 km north of South Kivu's provincial capital Bukavu.

The United Nations warned there were "credible reports that the M23 is moving rapidly towards the city of Bukavu".

- Call for volunteers -

In Bukavu -- home to two million, and the second biggest city in eastern DR Congo after Goma -- an AFP reporter witnessed long lines of volunteers queueing to join a Congolese militia that has been fighting alongside the army.

Scores of young men carried out drills on the red earth inside a stadium, a day after the provincial interior minister called on people to enlist to fight back against the M23.

The military has yet to comment on M23's latest advances but President Felix Tshisekedi said earlier this week that a "vigorous" military response was under way.

Information about the fast-moving offensive has remained unclear, but so far M23 fighters have met with limited resistance from the ill-equipped and poorly paid Congolese forces.

In Goma, residents emerged to count the dead and search for food, as hospitals struggled to cope with the wounded.

"We do not want to live under the thumb of these people," one person, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The United Nations, United States, European Union, China, Britain, France and mediator Angola have all called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces.

Britain said Thursday it was considering reviewing aid to Rwanda.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has strongly rejected accusations that Kigali is supporting the armed group, saying: "M23 are not Rwandans -- they are Congolese."

On Friday, the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will hold an extraordinary meeting on the crisis.

While Kagame will not attend -- a government spokesperson telling AFP that Rwanda was "not a member of SADC" -- Tshisekedi will be present, according to the Congolese presidency.

The meeting follows soaring tensions between Kagame and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa after the deaths of 13 South African soldiers in DRC's east.

The soldiers were part of the SADC Mission in DRC, which deployed to the east of the country in 2023 and is made up of around 2,900 troops from Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania.

- 'All the way to Kinshasa' -

The M23 and Rwandan troops entered Goma on Sunday. During days of intense clashes that killed more than 100 people, the group seized control over much of the city as many Congolese soldiers surrendered or fled.

"We are in Goma and we will not leave," Corneille Nangaa, head of a coalition of groups including the M23, said on Thursday.

"We will continue the march of liberation all the way to Kinshasa."

The offensive has heightened an already dire humanitarian crisis in the region, causing food and water shortages and forcing half a million people from their homes this month, the UN said.

A report by UN experts in July supported the claims, finding that Rwanda has thousands of troops in eastern DRC -- and holds "de facto control" over the M23.

Rwanda has denied the accusations.

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U.Shaheen--SF-PST