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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 25 January 2007

DRC: Civilians caught up in fighting between dissident troops

KINSHASA, 25 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - Hundreds of civilians who fled their homes five days ago after fighting between dissident soldiers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had not received relief aid, humanitarian workers said on Thursday.

"We are waiting for our team's evaluation of the situation," Andrew Zadel, an information officer with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said from Goma, capital of North Kivu Province.

Zadel said it was difficult to evaluate the condition of the displaced because they had fled in different directions while the humanitarian community had a limited capacity as it was already dealing with 600,000 displaced persons in other parts of the country.

The fighting began on Saturday in the North Kivu villages of Luke and Murambi.

A military spokesman with the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), Maj Ajay Dalal, said one civilian was shot dead on Tuesday and two others wounded during fighting between two groups of dissident troops loyal to Gen Laurent Nkunda.

"The two villages were empty when the blue helmets arrived there, but some of the residents are returning due to the presence of MONUC," Dalal said from Goma. Dalal said the cause of the fighting in Luke and Murambi, 36km southwest of the territory of Masisi, was unknown.

However, the deputy commander of the North Kivu Military Region and the officer in charge of reintegration, Col Delphin Kahindi, said the fighting broke out between groups of Nkunda's troops who differed over their reintegration into the national army.

>Kahindi said a group attacked 60 to 80 soldiers in favour of reintegration, who had tried to open a corridor to the national army's brigade. "They set fire to the villages and killed civilians," he said.

He said two battalions of Nkunda's men were in the region, with only 80 men having signed up for reintegration into the army.

"Senior officers among Nkunda's troops oppose the integration of their forces into the regular army while most of the rank and file support the measure," Kahindi said.

The fighting occurred as Nkunda held negotiations with the army, under the mediation of the Rwandan government, seeking to end the low-level rebellion he has waged against the Congolese government, mostly in North Kivu, since 2004.

Speaking from his mountainous hideout in Masisi on Saturday, Nkunda agreed to participate in talks with the government on condition that troops loyal to him are integrated into the army and the rights of all Kinyarwanda-speakers in the country were protected.

The talks between Nkunda's rebel movement, known as Congrès national pour la défense du peuple, and the Congolese army, have been in progress since early January.

The reintegration into the army of Nkunda's 81st and 83rd brigades has been ongoing for a week now. Kahindi said one mixed brigade, known as Alpha, was formed on Saturday and the integration of another brigade was scheduled to be completed on Thursday.

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This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2007