Nearly 3,000 people were killed over the last week as rebels captured a key city in one of the deadliest battles in the Central African country in decades.

The Democratic Republic of Congo will present a motion to the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking an investigation into what it called "mass violations" of rights in the city of Goma, its envoy told reporters on Thursday.

Rwanda-backed rebels claimed on Monday they captured eastern Congo’s strategic city of Goma, the hub of a region containing trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that remains largely untapped.

The Rwanda-backed rebels who captured a major city in eastern Congo have sought to reassure its residents about their safety

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights urged “all those with influence” to move quickly to end the deadly violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and stop it from exploding into a regional war.

U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on Friday that the worst could be ahead in the escalating crisis in eastern Congo, saying he expected sexual violence including incidents of rape and sexual slavery to increase.

Worse violence "may be yet to come" in the conflict-hit Democratic Republic of Congo, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Friday. An offensive by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group against Congolese forces in and around the eastern city of Goma has left almost 3,