Human Rights Watch has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo army of rape and numerous abuses against civilians that it says amount to war crimes.
DR Congo soldiers and the UN peacekeeping force MONUC have been conducting joint operations in eastern DRC. These operations are aimed at combating the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) Hutu rebels, including leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
But HRW claims the local troops are committing atrocities in the area's remote North Kivu province.
It has accused government soldiers of raping more than 143 women and girls since January - more than half the total number of rape cases documented by HRW researchers in the country.
'The Congolese army is responsible for widespread and vicious abuses against its own people that amount to war crimes,' Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher in HRW's Africa Division, said in a statement.
'The government should take urgent action to end these abuses. A military operation that targets the very people the government claims to be protecting can only lead to disaster.'
The FDLR largely withdrew when the DRC government, backed first by Rwanda's army and then by the UN, launched the offensive.
But tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced during the operations and the FDLR has retaken much of the ground it initially lost.
DRC government spokesman has rejected the Human Rights Watch accusations as lies.
'It is becoming ridiculous ... we are going to put an end to all these (accusations)," said Information Minister Lambert Mende.
UN Security Council envoys flew to Goma in eastern DR Congo on Monday to bolster a UN drive to help resolve years of conflict in the region and ultimately allow the 17,000-strong UN force there to leave.
