Fighting broke out around the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday as allies sent more troops to help President Laurent Kabila crush a Tutsi-led uprising in a war involving up to seven countries.
Mr Kabila, who only returned to Kinshasa on Tuesday after a week away, was again absent from the city, his chief-of-staff told reporters. He declined to say where he went but said he would return to the city soon.
Rebels said yesterday Mr Kabila had fled the city. His information minister was reported to be in neighbouring Brazzaville.
Heavy weapons fire rang out over Kinshasa in the afternoon as forces loyal to Mr Kabila engaged rebels not far from the airport, according to witnesses.
But, as on Wednesday, the witnesses reported no sign of rebel activity at Ndjili international airport itself.
"There are still some small pockets [of rebels]," the Interior Minister, Mr Gaetan Kakudji, said. "It won't last too long."
With the city under a dusk to dawn curfew, the Zimbabwean President, Mr Robert Mugabe, Mr Kabila's most active supporter who is facing criticism at home, sent in more troops to join the 600 special forces soldiers already there.
"Zimbabwe is sending reinforcements after finding that regular troops from at least two foreign countries were spearheading the attacks on Kinshasa," Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper said. Military sources confirmed the report.
The Namibian President, Mr Sam Nujoma, confirmed for the first time that units of his army were fighting alongside Zimbabwean and Angolan troops supporting Mr Kabila against the rebellion that began nearly four weeks ago in the east.
It was the second day of fighting around the capital of the former Zaire after heavy rebel infiltration into the suburbs before dawn on Wednesday in what one western diplomat described as an act of desperation by the encircled attackers. A resident of Masina suburb said up to 10 rebels had been beaten to death by the local population.
With increasing criticism at home over his unilateral decision to commit Zimbabwean troops to the battle in what is not even a neighbouring country, Mr Mugabe called on the Organisation of African Unity to take a hand.
A peace mission led by the South African Foreign Minister, Mr Alfred Nzo, returned home yesterday after meeting the OAU, claiming it could not get into Kinshasa because of the fighting.
But a later statement from OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa made it clear the two had failed to agree on the next step.
The rebels, who claim to control much of the east and centre of Africa's potentially richest, but in reality among the poorest countries, have been accused by a religious news agency in Rome of massacring at least 100 people, including nuns and a priest.
Yesterday the Times of Zambia said 22 American missionaries had fled the country from Mr Kabila's southern stronghold of Lubumbashi.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Tanzania said large numbers of people fleeing the fighting were massing on the shores of Lake Tanganyika where they were in danger of starvation.
Mr Niall Andrews MEP, yesterday called on the President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, to put in train the freezing of EU aid to all the factions involved in the war, including Rwanda, Uganda, Angola and Zimbabwe.