(Adds emergency relief supplies arriving, Southern African leaders call) By Hereward Holland GOMA, Congo, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Their church crammed with refugees, thousands of Congolese in the eastern town of Goma donned their Sunday best to pray outdoors for an end to fighting that has brought them misery and threatens regional peace. As they prayed, sporadic fighting between dissident Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's men and Congolese government soldiers and their allies erupted in various parts of North Kivu despite new calls by African leaders for a ceasefire. The continued fighting is hampering aid workers' attempts to help tens of thousands of people who have fled two weeks of clashes that have caused what the United Nations has called a humanitarian catastrophe. "The priest told us we must pray for those who are not ready for to let peace come to our country," said Lewis Fariala, a volunteer at the Don Bosco centre in Goma. "I think it will be impossible to have peace without this," he said after a service during which several thousand town residents and displaced villagers, many in bright robes, gathered to sing and clap for peace. Mass was held on pews in the open air as the Catholic church is now home to about 1,000 displaced women and children. Another 2,000 sleep elsewhere but are fed by the centre. "We only have five litres of water between the seven of us," said 15-year-old Furaha Sebangezi, who fled into Goma and is now living on a plastic sheet. "I couldn't find water ... but I didn't want to go to church without washing." Southern African leaders on Sunday called for a ceasefire to give the displaced people access to humanitarian assistance. "We firmly believe that there is no military solution to the problem," South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said at a regional summit in Johannesburg. That followed an earlier African appeal for a ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor. But neither have materialised so far. "Help? Help comes but there are others who still haven't found help. We are here but we haven't yet found anything to eat," said Innocent Kibumba, a refugee at a camp in Kibati, 12 km (7 miles) north of Goma. Some aid workers were able to assist refugees in rebel-held territory after the Oct. 29 ceasfire but renewed fighting has stopped much of this. On Sunday, two planes carrying water purification tablets, sheets and other emergency relief kit donated by Britain to supply 11,000 families landed at Goma airport. CLASHES ON SEVERAL FRONTS U.N peacekeepers said clashes erupted on Sunday morning in three parts of North Kivu, where Nkunda has waged his four-year rebellion, before calming down after they intervened. Nkunda's men fought against government forces and the Mai Mai, a pro-Kinshasa militia, in two clashes north of Rutshuru, but were also fighting Rwandan Hutu rebels at Ngungu, 60 km west of Goma, U.N. military spokesman Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich said. Refusing to sign up to the 2003 deal that ended Congo's wider five year war, Nkunda first justified his rebellion saying he was protecting his fellow Tutsis from attacks by Rwandan Hutus, some of whom came to Congo after the 1994 genocide during which 800,000 Tutsis were killed. Amongst other complaints are that Congolese government forces are fighting alongside and not, as promised, disarming the Hutu rebels. But he has since broadened his rebellion and has threatened to take it to the distant capital, Kinshasa. The fighting has taken on a regional dimension as Rwanda, which has twice invaded Congo, officially to fight the Hutu rebels, is accused of supporting Nkunda and Kinshasa has called on Angola, which backed it during the war, for help. Congo's weak and chaotic army collapsed during Nkunda's advance last week. But the appearance in North Kivu of more disciplined, Portuguese-speaking soldiers has fuelled speculation Angola has sent reinforcements. But General Vainqueur Mayala, head of the army in North Kivu, denied the troops came from the former Portuguese colony. "It is true that some of them speak Portuguese. They have been trained by an Angolan contingent, they spent a lot of time with the Angolans. I speak French but I am not French," he said. (Writing and additional reporting by David Lewis; Additional reporting by Yves Boussen in Kibati and Emmanuel Braun in Goma; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Angus MacSwan)
Soldiers from the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) manage a checkpoint north of Kibati village November 7, 2008. Fighting between rebels and the army caused a fresh ...
