Congolese flight to Uganda continues as rebels seize border towns

Nov 29, 2008, 11:45 GMT

Kampala - Thousands of Congolese refugees continued to pour into neighbouring Uganda on Saturday after rebels seized two border towns in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN and Ugandan military officials said.

Around 2,000 Congolese refugees crossed the border between Friday night and Saturday morning, Ugandan army spokesman Captain Tabaro Kiconco told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The civilians began fleeing renewed battles around mid-week and 13,000 had entered Uganda by Thursday.

Some 27,000 Congolese have fled into Uganda since fighting between the rebels and government forces began in early August, the spokesperson for the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Kampala, Roberta Russo, told dpa.

Fighting between troops loyal to rebel general Laurent Nkunda and government forces exploded into full-scale conflict in October when the rebels came on the verge of taking Goma, the capital of the eastern North Kivu province.

Well over 250,000 civilians have been displaced since August as a result of the clashes, aid agencies say.

Nkunda called a ceasefire and pulled his troops back from the front lines in mid-November after meeting UN special envoy and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Obasanjo is in the DR Congo again this weekend and is expected to meet most of the groups involved in the battles.

Despite the ceasefire, clashes have been reported between Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and the pro-government Mai Mai militia over the last few days.

Nkunda's men have now taken the border town of Ishasha, about 120 kilometres from Goma, and another town on Lake Edward, which is shared between DR Congo and Uganda.

'The rebels are still holding the two towns of Ishasha and Nyakagoma landing site,' said Kiconco. 'We are now sharing the border with the rebels and they are about to start collecting taxes.'

Civilians caught in between the warring forces have suffered atrocities at the hands of all parties, according to the UN. There have been repeated reports of rape, looting and murder by the CNDP and government forces.

The UN has agreed to send another 3,000 troops to bolster the 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo, known as MONUC. The peacekeepers are hopelessly overstretched by the conflict.

Nkunda has warned he will march on the capital Kinshasa if the government does not address his grievances.

The rebel general says he is fighting to protect Tutsis from Hutu militias who fled to the DR Congo after Tutsi forces seized power in Rwanda.

The armed Hutu groups were implicated in the 1994 massacres in Rwanda, when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

However, the DR Congo government has so far refused to talk to Nkunda and accused Rwanda of backing him.

There are fears that the conflict could draw in other countries and reignite the 1998-2003 war, which UN agencies say caused the deaths of over 5 million people in the DR Congo.