Clashes leave more homeless in Congo's east

A surge in violence in northeastern Congo's Ituri region has driven thousands more people from their homes and into makeshift refugee camps or the bush, the United Nations said on Friday.

More than 88,000 people are receiving humanitarian aid in Ituri's Djugu Territory in the Democratic Republic of Congo after fleeing the wave of fighting that broke out late last year, UN chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

However, UN emergency-relief workers are more concerned about the uncounted thousands who are not getting aid because they fled into the bush and other inaccessible areas instead of to the camps, Eckhard said.

A flood of refugees returning to Ituri from neighboring Uganda is also complicating the situation, said Dr Modibo Traore, who heads a field office of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Bunia.

The refugees began returning home after more UN peacekeepers moved into the region to stop the fighting and protect civilians. The UN presence was reinforced after nine UN soldiers were slaughtered by militia fighters last month.

The area's homeless are in desperate need of food, medical supplies, blankets, plastic sheeting, soap and other aid, Traore said in a statement released at UN headquarters.

"Existing facilities have been overstretched by the recent population explosion in the camps," he said.

Ituri, a heavily forested and isolated district thousands of km from Congo's transitional government in Kinshasa, is rich in gold, diamonds and timber but racked by ethnic bloodletting and fighting between rival armed groups.

The UN mission in Congo, overseeing implementation of a 2003 peace agreement ending a five-year civil war, was recently expanded to 16,700 troops, making it the world's largest peacekeeping operation. But parts of the country are still plagued by violent clashes among militias, armed tribal groups and undisciplined government soldiers.

- REUTERS