The UN says at least 700 people have been killed in intense fighting in Goma, the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, since Sunday.
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said 2,800 people have been injured, as M23 rebels – backed by Rwanda – captured the capital of North Kivu province.
The rebels are now reported to be moving south towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu.
The conflict in eastern DR Congo dates back to the 1990s but has rapidly escalated in recent weeks.
M23, which is made up of ethnic Tutsis, say they are fighting for minority rights, while DR Congo’s government says the Rwanda-backed rebels are seeking control of the eastern region’s vast mineral wealth.
On Friday, Dujarric said the casualty figures came from an assessment made by the World Health Organization and its partners, alongside the DR Congo’s government, between Sunday and Thursday.
The UN spokesman also warned the death toll would rise further.
In an attempt to halt M23’s progress, the DR Congo military has set up a defensive line on the road between Goma and Bukavu, according to the AFP news agency.
Hundreds of civilian volunteers have been enlisted to defend Bukavu.
One young man told the AFP: “I am ready to die for my country.”
Jean-Jacques Purusi Sadiki, the governor of South Kivu – the province M23 are marching on – told Reuters news agency the government army and its allies were holding back the rebels, though that claim has not been independently verified.
Earlier this week, M23 vowed to continue its offensive until it reached the capital Kinshasa, about 2,600km (1,600 miles) to the west.
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Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the country’s foreign minister, told the BBC that Rwanda was illegally occupying her country and attempting to orchestrate regime change.
Wagner said the international community had allowed Rwandan President Paul Kagame decades of impunity and failed to hold him accountable for violating international law.
Rwanda’s government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo denied the accusation, saying the country’s troops were only deployed to prevent the conflict spilling over to its territory.
“We’re not interested in war, we’re not interested in annexation, we’re not interested in regime change,” Makolo told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
UN experts estimated last year that Rwanda had between 3,000 and 4,000 troops operating alongside the M23 in eastern DR Congo.
On Friday, the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) regional bloc declared its support for DR Congo at a crisis summit in Zimbabwe.
In a statement, the 16-member group “reaffirmed its solidarity and unwavering commitment to continue supporting the DRC in its pursuit of safeguarding its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Sadc has sent peacekeeping troops, primarily from South Africa, to DR Congo to combat armed groups like the M23 and restore peace in the mineral-rich region after decades of unrest.
Sixteen soldiers from southern African countries have been killed in clashes with the M23 around Goma in the past week.
The fighting has also worsened the humanitarian crisis in eastern DR Congo.
Shelley Thakral, from the UN’s World Food Programme, said the city’s residents were running out of food, clean water and medical supplies.
“The supply chain has really been strangled at the moment if you think about land access, air access, when everything is closed down,” she told AFP.
Since the start of 2025, more than 400,000 people have been forced from their homes, according to the UN’s refugee agency.
DR Congo is Africa’s second-largest country – about two-thirds the size of Western Europe – and borders nine different countries.
Previous conflicts in the country during the 1990s drew in several neighbours and were dubbed Africa’s World Wars.
