Villagers sleep in jungle to avoid Congo fighting

KARUBA - Forced to sleep in the jungle for fear of being attacked in their homes at night, the residents of this east Congo village are crying out for peace.

Government soldiers forced fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda out of Karuba and two nearby villages this week but only pushed them back to Mushake, 15 km (9 miles) away, meaning the front line is still dangerously close.

"We've been sleeping in the bush at night for a month now. We return to the village by day to see the situation. We've nothing to eat, no clothes," said Karuba resident Jerome Lali.

The village of shacks nestles in the hills of North Kivu, a thickly-forested province on Democratic Republic of Congo's border with Uganda and Rwanda, long a crucible of violence.

Nkunda, an ethic Tutsi, says President Joseph Kabila's government and armed forces are supporting Rwandan Hutu rebels, accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Nkunda's men, who say they are defending the interests of Congolese Tutsis in ethnically mixed North Kivu, have been battling government forces on and off since August, when they walked out of a peace deal agreed at the start of the year.

The government has set an Oct. 15 deadline for Nkunda to disband his rebel forces and send his fighters for integration into army brigades that would be stationed outside North Kivu.

Nkunda said this week he was ready to integrate his men. But fighting was still raging on Thursday near Mushake -- around 40 km (25 miles) west of the provincial capital, Goma -- and government forces have beefed up their presence there.

"They are testing each other. Neither wants to be blamed for bringing the situation to the brink," said David Mugnier, central Africa director for International Crisis Group.

"There is a risk of maybe not a major conflict but certainly a worsening of the current situation," he said.


DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS

Artillery and machinegun fire have forced hundreds of families from their homes in recent days. Some 10,000 people had already been displaced in Mushake before the latest unrest, out of 370,000 who have fled fighting in North Kivu this year.

"What we're worried about with the expanding and intensifying of fighting is that we're seeing people who have already had to flee for the second or third time," said Patrick Lavand'homme, head of U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA in Goma.

"The problem is reaching these areas to distribute medical and surgical supplies. It's now impossible," he said.

Mugnier said Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and the U.N. envoy for East Africa had been in contact with Nkunda for weeks as part of broader efforts to ease tense relations between Congo and Rwanda.

"They are trying to mediate. They want a rapprochement between Kinshasa and Kigali, and they know North Kivu is a big problem for the two countries," Mugnier said.

Rwanda has twice invaded Congo in pursuit of Hutu rebels it blames for the 1994 genocide. The second invasion triggered a 1998-2003 war in Congo which killed some 4 million people.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said last month that Nkunda, whom Amnesty International accuses of war crimes, had legitimate grievances and called for a political deal to end the fighting.