By RUTH MACLEAN and ELIAN PELTIER NYTimes News Service
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DAKAR, Senegal — Rebels in Congo have surrounded the eastern city of Goma, in one of the sharpest escalations in years of a conflict that has pitted the Central African country against its neighbor Rwanda.

On Thursday, fighting raged between rebels from the Rwanda-backed M23 group and Congolese forces in the town of Saké, the last major army position before Goma, a provincial capital with more than 2 million people. On Tuesday, M23 captured Minova, a key town along one of Goma’s main supply routes.

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Goma’s fall would be a major milestone for M23. The group captured the city and held it for two weeks in 2012, but withdrew after Rwanda came under intense international pressure to stop backing the militia. The United States and United Nations say Rwanda funds and directs the M23, charges Rwanda has denied.

Rebels have also made gains in other parts of the North and South Kivu provinces, which include two other major cities, Butembo and Bukavu. M23 has made the capture of Kavumu airport another main objective, according to U.N. intelligence. Government-allied troops have used the airport to support the Congolese armed forces.

The conflict in eastern Congo has been going on since the 1990s and has involved dozens of armed groups, of which M23 is currently dominant.

Rwanda claims M23 is fighting for the rights of Congo’s Tutsis — the ethnic group targeted by extremists from Rwanda’s Hutu majority in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed.

But many Congolese see the rebel advance as an invasion of their country by a foreign power.

As the rebels have conquered more territory over the past few years, the violence has reached new heights.

More than 240,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes since the start of this year, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.