“The situation is confusing, complex and horrific,” said Greg Ramm, Congo’s country director for Save The Children, an aid group. “There is no safe place to go from Goma. Every time a family flees the guns and bombs to a supposed safe place, they are forced to move again.”

Fighting has escalated sharply in recent weeks in eastern Congo, where rebels have seized key towns and are closing in on the city of Goma, the government’s last stronghold in the North Kivu province,

A rebel alliance spearheaded by the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 militia said it had seized the lakeside city of more than 2 million people.