[Source: Reuters]

Rebels seized the airport of east Congo’s largest city Goma.

Potentially cutting off the main route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of displaced people, after capturing the city in an offensive that left dead bodies lying in the streets.

M23 fighters marched into Goma on Monday in the worst escalation since 2012 of a three-decade conflict rooted in the long fallout from the Rwandan genocide and the struggle for control of Congo’s abundant mineral resources.

In the Congolese capital Kinshasa, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of Goma, protesters attacked a U.N. compound and embassies including those of Rwanda, France and the United States, expressing anger at what they said was foreign interference. Looters ransacked the embassy of Kenya.

Goma is a major hub for people displaced by fighting elsewhere in eastern Congo and aid groups seeking to assist them.

The fighting has sent thousands of people streaming out of the city including some who had recently sought refuge there from M23’s offensive since the start of the year.

Just across the border in Rwanda, trucks were unloading large numbers of people fleeing Goma with their children and bundles of possessions wrapped in pieces of fabric.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s government and the head of U.N. peacekeeping have said Rwandan troops were present in Goma, backing up their M23 allies.

Rwanda has said it is defending itself against the threat from Congolese militias, without directly commenting on whether its troops have crossed the border.

Goma residents and U.N. sources said dozens of troops had surrendered, but some soldiers and pro-government militiamen were holding out.

People in several neighbourhoods reported small arms fire and some loud explosions on Tuesday morning.

“I have heard the crackle of gunfire from midnight until now … it is coming from near the airport,” an elderly woman in Goma’s northern Majengo neighbourhood, close to the airport, told Reuters by phone.

Much of the fighting was concentrated around the airport, and by Tuesday afternoon several diplomatic and security sources said the M23 rebels had taken full control of it, putting them in charge of a vital link to the outside world.

“It was through the airport that the U.N., the humanitarian groups, the peacekeepers and even the Congolese army were getting supplies in,” said Congo researcher Christoph Vogel, adding that there was no viable access by road or by boat on Lake Kivu.

REPORTS OF RAPE AND LOOTING

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA), told a briefing in Geneva colleagues had reported “heavy small arms fire and mortar fire across the city and the presence of many dead bodies in the streets”.