Tens of thousands displaced after Congo clashes -UN
14 Dec 2006 14:49:00 GMT Source: Reuters
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A Congolese refugee holds an empty plate as she waits for a meal at Nyakabande refugee camp, near Kisoro 511Km (317 miles) southwest of Uganda's capital Kampala.
REUTERS/James Akena
By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Fighting between Congolese rebels and the U.N.-backed army has displaced more than 50,000 people in the east, some of them beyond the reach of aid workers who risk being caught up in the violence, the U.N. said.
Congolese soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers have repeatedly battled fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda since late November in and around the town of Sake, about 30 km (19 miles) west of Goma, capital of North Kivu province.
Around 49,000 people were displaced following a failed government attack on Nkunda's forces over the weekend, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordination agency OCHA said on Thursday. A further 6,000 had fled into neighbouring Uganda.
An estimated 12,000 more were stranded in the town of Kitchanga, according to information given to the United Nations by a local relief organisation, beyond the reach of aid workers because the security situation there was so unstable.
"The main problem for humanitarian agencies is that as long as there is no real ceasefire, we could end up getting caught up in a surprise attack and in the middle of the crossfire," Patrick Lavand'homme, head of OCHA in North Kivu, told Reuters.
Democratic Republic of Congo has just held its first democratic elections in more than four decades, with incumbent President Joseph Kabila winning a tense Oct. 29 run-off. The polls were meant to draw a line under decades of war and chaos.
Despite the official end in 2003 of a six-year civil war that killed an estimated 4 million people, Congo's eastern provinces have seen continued sporadic fighting.
Relief agencies have begun distributing food to those they could reach but Lavand'homme said many of those who fled the latest fighting had still not been located.
Congo's army has been massing troops in the southern portion of North Kivu near Goma since late November when Nkunda's fighters seized Sake, raising fears among aid workers that the government is planning a new offensive against the general.
U.N. forces in support of the Congolese army used helicopter gunships, heavy weapons and armoured vehicles in several days of fighting against Nkunda's forces, eventually driving them out of Sake and killing at least 150 of his fighters.
The U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in Congo said it considered the dissident general and his two renegade brigades an internal matter which it hoped could be resolved through negotiations.
"We always try to resolve these problems politically and not militarily," U.N. spokesman Kemal Saiki told journalists at a weekly press conference on Wednesday. "We are hoping for a peaceful resolution."
Nkunda, formerly a general in the Congolese army, led his soldiers in a mutiny against Kabila in 2004, claiming his rebellion sought to protect his fellow Tutsis.
He is currently under an international arrest warrant for war crimes allegedly committed during a week-long occupation of the eastern city of Bukavu.
The relatively small province of North Kivu currently hosts more than half a million internal refugees, about half of Congo's total displaced population.
