More than 150,000 people have fled fighting between government forces and rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past six weeks, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said today.
They include 50,000 forced to leave their homes in the northeastern region of Ituri, where battles between the Congolese army and Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have caused a heavy loss of life and widespread destruction, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.
Some have fled to the town of Dungu in Ituri, where they are in dire need of humanitarian aid, according to the UNHCR. Local authorities have reported the bodies of some 100 civilians were dumped in a nearby river, spokesman Ron Redmond told a briefing.
Some 80 children were also missing, leading their parents to fear they were "forcefully recruited by the LRA", he said.
The LRA, which has led one of Africa's longest-running guerrilla wars against the government in Kampala, is notorious for abducting children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves.
A further 100,000 people have been uprooted in North Kivu where fighting erupted in late August between Congolese troops and Tutsi rebels led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda, UNHCR said.
Fighting is widespread in the Rutshuru and Masisi areas and most people were fleeing towards sites for internally displaced people around the provincial capital of Goma, it said.
Last week, the Democratic Republic of Congo gave the UN Security Council nearly three dozen photographs it said supported its accusation that Rwandan government soldiers invaded and attacked eastern Congo.
Rwanda has denied making an incursion into Congolese territory but U.N. peacekeepers in Congo are investigating the allegation that Rwandan army troops crossed into North Kivu to help insurgents led by Nkunda.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned last Friday that fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo could spark a wider regional conflict and called for an immediate ceasefire.
The LRA has been driven out of northern Uganda but continues to carry out raids in Congo, Sudan and Central African Republic from bases in Congo's Garamba National Park.
Reuters