By Reuters
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Congolese M23 rebels entered the centre of the eastern city of Goma on Monday, two witnesses said, hours after they claimed to have seized the city despite the United Nations Security Council demanding an end to the offensive.
It wasn't immediately clear if the Rwanda-backed rebel alliance had captured the whole of the lakeside city. At the airport, elements of the army and U.N. peacekeepers remained, residents, a local official and a United Nations source said.
The rebel's recent advance has forced thousands in Congo's mineral-rich east from their homes and triggered fears that a decades-old simmering conflict risks reigniting a broader regional war.
"There is confusion in the city; here near the airport, we see soldiers. I have not seen the M23 yet," one resident told Reuters. "There are also some cases of looting of stores."
Residents said gunfire could be heard near the airport, city centre and near the border with Rwanda.
Tryphon Kin-Kiey Mulumba, chairman of the Air Transport Authority, said the army remained in control of the airport.
Unverified videos shared on social media showed local residents looting merchandise outside the airport customs warehouse and columns of heavily armed men, believed to be M23 fighters, walking through the northern suburbs of the city.
It was not immediately possible to determine who was responsible for the shooting, but one resident said they were likely to be warning shots, not fighting.
The rebels had ordered government soldiers to surrender by 0300 on Monday (0100 GMT) and 100 Congolese soldiers had handed their weapons in to Uruguayan troops in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUSCO), Uruguay's military said.
MONUSCO staff and their families were evacuating across the border to Rwanda on Monday morning, where 10 buses were waiting to pick them up.
REBEL ZONES
Kenya's President William Ruto, chairman of the East African Community bloc, will hold an emergency meeting for heads of state on the situation, said Korir Sing'Oei, principal secretary at Kenya's foreign ministry.
The eastern borderlands of Democratic Republic of Congo, a country roughly the size of Western Europe, remain a tinderbox of rebel zones and militia fiefdoms in the wake of two successive regional wars stemming from Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Well-trained and professionally armed, M23 - the latest in a long line of Tutsi-led rebel movements - says it exists to protect Congo's ethnic Tutsi population.
The U.N. Security Council held crisis talks on Sunday over the situation in conflict, which has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
U.N. experts say that Rwanda has deployed 3,000 - 4,000 troops and provided significant firepower, including missiles and snipers, to support the M23 in fighting in Congo.
The United States, France and Britain on Sunday condemned what they said was Rwanda's backing of the rebel advance.
Kigali dismissed statements that "did not provide any solutions" and blamed Kinshasa for triggering the recent escalation.
"The fighting close to the Rwandan border continues to present a serious threat to Rwanda's security and territorial integrity, and necessitates Rwanda's sustained defensive posture," Rwanda's foreign ministry said.
(Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Hereward Holland, Gerry Doyle and Saad Sayeed)
