(Adds refugees and troops flooding Goma) By Yves Boussen and Hez Holland GOMA, Congo, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Rebels advanced on the eastern Congolese city of Goma on Wednesday, scattering civilians and soldiers and threatening to overwhelm a 17,000-strong U.N. force trying to halt a return to all-out war. Thousands of civilians and hundreds of Congolese government soldiers poured into Goma from the north, where the army has clashed with renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's men. A Reuters reporter saw thousands of angry people pouring into Goma from the north, and the army pulling back to positions at Goma's airport. The advance on Goma, a major crossing point and tin trading centre on the Rwandan border, sparked panic and accusations that the U.N. force was not doing enough to fight off the rebels. Fierce fighting since the Tutsi rebels launched their latest offensive on Sunday has displaced tens of thousands of civilians in North Kivu province, racked by continuous violence despite the end of Congo's regional war in 2003. The MONUC soldiers, many of them Indian, have been backing Congolese troops against Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). The head of the U.N. force, MONUC, says it is "stretched to the limit", but a request to the U.N. Security Council for reinforcements has not yet been met. "Nkunda keeps saying that he is going to take Goma. All that stands between him and Goma are the Indians, and some of the Indian commanders are not interested in fighting," said a Western diplomat. Civilians attacked the U.N. mission's headquarters near the airport, forcing the evacuation of most staff to a compound on the shore of Lake Kivu, nearer the Rwandan border and accessible by boat. "It was pretty horrible ... angry youths threw large stones. Windscreens and windows were broken, but I don't think anyone was hurt," said a U.N. staff member. RWANDA TENSIONS Neighbouring Rwanda, whose 1994 genocide is intricately tied up with years of ethnic bloodshed in eastern Congo, accused Congolese forces of shooting across the nearby border. The CNDP accuses Congo's army of collaborating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which includes Hutu militiamen and former Rwandan soldiers who took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. "There was an incursion at the border when Congolese forces of FARDC (army) fired into Rwanda," Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told Reuters in Rwanda's capital Kigali. Rwandan troops did not pursue the Congolese, she said. However, FARDC Colonel Jonas Padiri told a Reuters reporter at Kibati, at the entrance to Congo's Virunga National Park, around 10 km (6 miles) north of Goma, that his forces had been targeted by fire from the Rwandan side of the border. "A big concern is how Rwanda will act at this stage. If they feel threatened or there are acts against the Tutsis, I think this would be a red line for Kigali," a diplomat in Congo said. Congolese army troops had already abandoned the town of Rutshuru, 70 km (45 miles) to the north of Goma, as rebels entered the town on Tuesday. MONUC has pledged to defend Rutshuru, Goma and the towns of Sake and Masisi, and said its troops had remained in Rutshuru. "Rutshuru and Kiwanja are deserted. Complete chaos broke out and everyone fled into the bush to the east and north," said Alice Gilbert, project officer for the relief agency Merlin. Government soldiers fleeing Rutshuru turned on peacekeepers on Tuesday night, attacking a MONUC base 35 km northwest of the town, wounding at least two peacekeepers, MONUC sources said. Around 250,000 civilians have fled their homes in North Kivu since a January peace deal collapsed in August. Nearly 850,000 had been displaced in the previous two years, the United Nations says. Congo's 1998-2003 war and the resulting humanitarian crisis have killed an estimated 5.4 million people.
Survivors of an earthquake sit near their collapsed houses in Ziarat, one of the main tourist spots in Baluchistan, October 29, 2008. About 175 people were killed when the powerful earthquake ...
