From PBS NewsHour.

Thousands have fled Goma, a key city in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after M23 rebel fighters claimed control of the city Monday.

The fighting between the rebel groups and the Congolese forces has been a decades-long conflict displacing 4.5 million people. It has spurred one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises and is a conflict rooted in ethnic tensions and desires to control DRC’s mineral resources.

M23 is named after the date of a failed-peace agreement that was signed between the group’s predecessor and Congo on March 23, 2009. The United Nations and the United states say M23 is funded and directed by Rwanda, a claim the Rwandan government denies.

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