THOUSANDS of civilians have fled a rebel advance in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as leaders prepared a summit on the crisis, which the UN says has blocked access to camps sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people.
The M23 rebel group, army mutineers who took the regional capital Goma on Tuesday and the key town of Sake the next day, appeared to halt their rampant advance just south of Sake after battles with government forces and an allied local militia, a United Nations source told AFP.
Thousands of people were fleeing Sake heading east toward Goma, and the local head of a relief agency reported numerous casualties.
"There are bodies lining the road" leading south from Sake, Thierry Goffeau, the head of the Goma chapter of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told AFP, without giving specific figures.
UN experts have accused Rwanda and Uganda of backing the M23 - a charge both countries deny - and the guerrillas' escalating assault has raised fears of wider conflict erupting in the chronically unstable region.
The army has proved unable to contain the rebellion, despite being backed by a massive UN peacekeeping operation that deployed attack helicopters in a bid to protect civilians from the M23's advance.
UN peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer said the UN was considering using drones for the first time to monitor the fighting.
The UN refugee agency meanwhile warned the fighting had blocked access to all but one of the 31 camps for displaced people in North Kivu.
"UNHCR is extremely concerned about the situation of displaced people in ... North Kivu province, especially children and other vulnerable groups," said spokesman Adrian Edwards.
The European Union also added its voice to the international chorus demanding the rebels stop their advance, "starting with the immediate stop of the M23 offensive and its retreat from Goma."
The rebels have refused to withdraw from Goma unless President Joseph Kabila agrees to peace talks.
Regional leaders are due to hold a summit on the crisis on Saturday in Kampala, including Kabila, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
M23 leader Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero was in the Ugandan capital on Friday at the request of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the rebels said.
The M23 was launched by former fighters in an ethnic Tutsi rebel group that was integrated into the military under a 2009 peace deal whose terms the mutineers claim were never fully implemented.
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