Rebels, government troops clash again in Congo
Cease-fire is broken during a brief skirmish that sends thousands of civilians fleeing a displacement camp.
Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya — A shaky cease-fire in eastern Congo ruptured again today when a brief skirmish between rebels and government troops sent thousands of civilians fleeing a displacement camp as they lined up to receive food aid.
In what is becoming a sadly familiar scene, panicked families ran at the first sound of gunfire, dashing toward the city of Goma.
U.N. peacekeeping officials said the skirmish started when a squad of rebels fired their guns in the air. Fearing they were under attack, government troops lobbed artillery shells and mortars at the rebels, prompting a 40-minute battle.
"It was an accident," said U.N. spokesman Col. Jean Paul Dietrich. He said peacekeeping troops responded and the situation was quickly contained.
Rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda last week declared a cease-fire, but clashes have resumed in recent days.
Nkunda has warned that he will renew assaults if Congolese President Joseph Kabila rejects his demand for direct talks. He claims to be fighting to protect minority Tutsis in eastern Congo from Hutu militiamen who escaped Rwanda after carrying out the 1994 genocide.
Kabila has called Nkunda a terrorist set on overthrowing the Democratic Republic of Congo's elected government.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today that the crisis is threatening to embroil the entire region. Eastern Congo was the center of two Central African conflicts in the 1990s in which nearly 5 million died, mostly from disease and starvation.
"This crisis could engulf the broader sub-region," Ban told reporters after a summit in Nairobi with seven African leaders, including Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Both sides in Congo accuse the other of receiving foreign assistance. Rebels say the government is helped by Angola and Zimbabwe. Congo's government accuses the Tutsi-led government of Rwanda of backing Nkunda.
Aid groups say ongoing violence is blocking efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the nearly 1 million people displaced by the violence, including 250,000 driven from their homes over the past two months. Last week, near-riots broke out at one camp as UNICEF attempted to distribute high-energy biscuits to children.
"We are enormously concerned for the people we haven't been able to reach," said World Food Program spokesman Marcus Prior, who was at a food distribution site just outside the eastern Congo city of Goma this morning when the sound of gunfire sent people running.
"People were lined up and it was very orderly," he said. "Then shooting started to ring in the hills to the north. Within five minutes, the place was empty. It really underscores how tricky the situation is."
He said WFP hoped to resume the food distribution Saturday.
Sanders is a Times staff writer.
edmund.sanders@latimes.com
