REBELS in the Democratic Republic of Congo have warned they have the entire country in their sights after seizing the key eastern city of Goma, and demanded that President Joseph Kabila leave power.
"We are not going to stop at Goma, we will go as far as Bukavu, Kisangani and Kinshasa," M23 spokesman Viannay Kazarama told a crowd massed at a stadium in Goma on Wednesday, a day after the rebels easily overran the city.
Kazarama also demanded the departure of Kabila, charging that he was not the legitimate winner of a hotly disputed presidential election last year.
But in Goma, rebels were consolidating their control of the city which they took with ease on Tuesday after a five-day advance, with locals cheering as vehicles packed full of gun-toting M23 fighters drove through the streets.
At the rally in Goma, the capital of mineral-rich North Kivu province, Kazarama called for police and soldiers to join the rebels, who have vowed to continue fighting unless Kinshasa agrees to talks.
The UN has around 1500 "quick reaction" peacekeepers in Goma, part of some 6700 troops in North Kivu province, backing government forces against the rebels.
The UN defended its peacekeepers after Goma fell, with deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey saying a battle for the city would have put civilians at risk.
"Do you open fire and put civilians at risk or do you hold your fire, continue your patrols, observe what is happening and remind the M23 that they are subject to international humanitarian and human rights law?" he asked.
Rebels in the DRC - M23 among them - have been blamed for hundreds of deaths since they launched their uprising in the east in April.
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes or camps around Goma, a city of about one million that is sheltering tens of thousands forced from their homes by conflict.
Aid group Oxfam described the situation as "a humanitarian catastrophe on a massive scale" and urged the international community to act.
Global Witness called for both sides to stop fighting for the sake of the civilians.
Kabila has meanwhile urged the population to defend the nation.
In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, he alluded to Rwanda's alleged role in the conflict.
"When a war is imposed, one has an obligation to resist," Kabila said. "I ask that the entire population defend our sovereignty."
The M23, formed by former members of an ethnic Tutsi rebel group, mutinied in April after the failure of a 2009 peace deal that integrated them into the regular DRC army.
Two wars that shook the whole of DR Congo between 1996 and 1997, and then again from 1998 to 2002, both began in the Kivu region, with Rwanda and Uganda playing active roles in both.
Since 1998, more than three million people are estimated to have died from combat, disease and hunger, and 1.6 million have been left homeless.
The former Belgian colony, known as Zaire under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was toppled in 1997, remains one of the world's least developed countries despite a wealth of cobalt, copper, coltan, diamonds and gold.
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