Thousands flee Congo fighting
Widespread fighting between rebel groups in north eastern Congo over the past month has forced more than 155,000 people to flee their homes, an aid group said today.
In the past four days alone, heavy artillery fire has forced 35,000 from the town of Makeke towards Beni, headquarters of the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, or RCD-ML, said the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres.
United Nations officials said fighting for control of resource-rich areas of Ituri and North Kivu provinces was continuing, despite a peace deal rebels groups signed on December 30.
The groups which signed the truce, but were continuing to battle for control of the areas the RCD-ML, as well as the Congolese Liberation Movement, or MLC, and its allied Congolese Rally for Democracy-National.
Manodje Mounoubai, spokesman of the UN mission in Congo, or MONUC, said that under the peace deal the MLC and RCD-N agreed to withdraw their troops from the towns of Mambasa and Komanda to allow the UN to deploy military observers and permit RCD-ML to resume running the towns.
But UN officials said that despite the cease-fire, MLC and RCD-N forces were continuing to attack RCD-ML positions, capturing the towns of Teturi and Bakulu.
Mounoubai said MONUC had deployed an additional team of military observers in Beni, 808 miles north-east of the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
UN military observers also arrived Thursday in Mambasa, 56 miles north-east of Beni, he said.
A team of military observers was expected next week in Komanda, 56 miles north-west of Beni, to monitor implementation of the cease-fire, Mounoubai said.
In a bid to defuse tensions, the United Nations has asked all sides to meet next week in the eastern city of Kisangani.
“The meeting is primarily aimed at building confidence between soldiers at a time when serious fighting continues to take place in the east and north-east of the country,” Moumoubai said.
He did not specify a date for the meeting, and it was not immediately clear who would attend.
MSF regional spokesman Wyger Wentholt said large areas of the region remained inaccessible to humanitarian aid as fighting and violence raged on in north-eastern Congo,
In South Kivu province, 273 miles south of Beni, fighting between a fourth Congolese rebel group and tribal fighters loyal to the Congolese Government has forced hundreds of people from the town of Baraka.
Nearly all the foreign troops involved in the wa in Congo that broke out in August 1998 have withdrawn, but fighting intensified among the main rebel factions, splinter groups and tribal fighters after the pullout in the east.
