Demonstrators erected barricades on Monday in several areas across Goma to protest the EAC force, with some looting shops and torching tires.
"The regional force of the EAC came to fight, but that is not what we see," said Sankara Bin Kartumwa, a member of Lucha, an activist group.
North Kivu's military governor, Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, appeared on the streets himself in a bid to defuse tensions, with protesters questioning him on the role of the EAC force as well as peacekeepers from the UN mission in the DRC, known as MONUSCO.
"We have the same problem, you understand? But I ask you not to barricade the road," Ndima told one protester in an exchange seen by an AFP reporter.
To aid the Democratic Republic of Congo's authorities, leaders of the seven-nation East African Community (EAC) approved the deployment of a military force to combat the rebels, with the first troops arriving in Goma last November.
But the initial hopes of many in DRC have been frustrated as M23 fighters, a Tutsi-led group, has captured large swathes of territory in the North Kivu province, recently coming to within a few miles of Goma and its one million residents.
EAC leaders gathered for a summit meeting in Burundi on Saturday urged an immediate ceasefire in eastern DRC.
The DRC government later said there were obstacles hindering the EAC's military force but stressed that it had a mandate to conduct offensive operations.
Violence against civilians and state forces has become commonplace: On Monday, authorities said unidentified militants had killed a ranger in North Kivu's famed Virunga National Park.
The M23 re-emerged from dormancy in late 2021, claiming that the DRC had failed to honor a pledge to integrate its fighters into the army.
It has continued to win victories against the Congolese military and rival armed groups. Last month, the rebels captured the strategic town of Kitchanga, west of Goma.
The conflict has forced many Congolese to flee their homes, sparking a humanitarian crisis.
The DRC accuses its smaller neighbor Rwanda of backing the M23, a claim that UN experts, the United States and other western countries agree with. Rwanda denies the charge.