Nearly 300 Democratic Republic of Congo police officers arrived early on Friday in Goma ahead of a scheduled rebel pullout from the key city in the mineral-rich region.

The policemen were due "to secure the city of Goma after the pullout of M23 rebels," Mondje Nounoubai, a spokesman for UN peacekeepers in the country, told AFP.

An AFP reporter in the city saw the arrival of more than 270 policemen out of a planned 450.

The M23 rebels seized Goma, the main city in the North Kivu province, last week.

Their lightning advance in the resource-rich but chronically volatile region sparked international concern of a wider conflict breaking out in the area.

The two wars that ravaged sub-Saharan Africa's largest country since the 1990s both began in the region.