By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Weeks of heavy fighting between the army and Tutsi rebels in eastern Congo's North Kivu province has forced 100,000 people from their homes, the United Nations said on Monday.
Congolese forces and rebels led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda started their latest bout of fighting in late August when a January peace deal aimed at ending more than a decade of violence collapsed.
U.N. and other international mediators have called upon all sides to pull back to initial positions and return to talks.
However, fighting continued on Monday as the army blasted Nkunda's hilltop positions with rockets, heavy guns, and helicopter gunships.
"We estimate that around 100,000 people have been displaced since the renewed fighting started on Aug. 28," Christophe Illemassene, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian coordination office, OCHA, said.
The latest wave of clashes is worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis in the tiny border province.
More than 830,000 North Kivu people had already fled on-off fighting last year and sporadic clashes during this year's eight-month peace process, which was plagued from the start by daily ceasefire violations.
Illemassene said many of those recently displaced had already been forced to flee several times, and it was unclear how many were new internal refugees.
The daily fighting is also hampering aid agencies' efforts to reach refugee camps.
"Delivery of assistance is being limited, because of the lack of access," he said. "It's definitely a concern, the humanitarian situation. We're very concerned."
North Kivu's is one of the world's worst conflict-driven humanitarian crises, adding to the estimated 5.4 million death toll from fighting, hunger and disease since a five-year war started in 1998, fuelled by Congo's mineral riches. (Editing by Alistair Thomson/Keith Weir)
Iraqi Major General Qassim Atta (R), spokesman for Baghdad operations and Iraq's minister of immigration Abul Samad Abdul Rahman (2nd R) listen to a returning displaced resident during a tour of ...
