Mount Goma

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) -Congolese rebels said on Sunday they had taken Goma, the biggest city in the east of the mineral-rich country, after a lightning advance that has forced thousands of people to flee and fuelled concerns of a regional war.

People who fled M23 rebels around Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, have found themselves with nowhere left to go.

Video showed inmates escaping a prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo as Rwandan-backed M23 rebels entered the eastern city of Goma. Thousands of civilians and Congolese soldiers fled to neighboring Rwanda in the latest escalation of conflict in the region.

M23 rebels claim they now control the Congolese city of Goma—an act Congo's government described as a 'declaration of war.'

Congolese rebels and allied Rwandan troops claimed on Monday to have captured the mineral-rich city of Goma, as thousands fled fighting that killed at least 13 peacekeepers over the weekend...

STORY: Rwandan-backed rebels marched into eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's largest city on Monday, according to witnesses.That's prompted thousands of people, including Congolese soldiers, to flee across the border into Rwanda.

Residents in eastern Congo’s largest city of Goma are fleeing after Rwanda-backed rebels claimed to have captured the regional hub from Congolese forces.

"Active zones of combat have spread to all quarters of the city, all the neighborhoods of the city," Lemarquis, the deputy U.N. envoy and top U.N. aid official in the DRC, told reporters in New York via video from Kinshasa.

An insurgency led by M23 rebels in eastern Congo has escalated and reached the city of Goma, worsening a humanitarian crisis in a region that suffered two devastating wars between 1996 and 2003.

The M23 offensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sparked a wave of international anger over the fighting