"Active zones of combat have spread to all quarters of the city, all the neighborhoods of the city," Lemarquis, the deputy U.N. envoy and top U.N. aid official in the DRC, told reporters in New York via video from Kinshasa.

Clashes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's besieged city of Goma have killed at least 17 people and injured nearly 370, hospital sources said on Monday, as the Congolese army fought to hold off M23 forces backed by the Rwandan army.

Troops from Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have been firing at each other across their shared border in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, where Rwandan-backed rebels launched an offensive,