Aid workers in eastern Congo began feeding tens of thousands of hungry refugees in rebel-held areas today, as a UN-appointed envoy started urgent talks aimed at averting a wider war.
Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his special envoy for eastern Congo, met Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda and then flew on to the Congolese capital Kinshasa.
Mr Obasanjo, tasked with seeking a lasting solution to the conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, was to hold talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Mr Obasanjo said he wanted to meet rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.
"Yesterday, by telephone, I spoke to my brother Nkunda ... everything will be done to meet with him face to face," he said at Luanda airport before leaving for Kinshasa. He said details were still being worked out.
Fighting between Mr Nkunda's Tutsi rebels and the Congolese army has forced some 250,000 people from their homes in North Kivu since late August, resulting in what the UN has called a humanitarian catastrophe and fears of a broader war.
For the first time after weeks of fighting, UN aid workers today handed out rations of maize and lentils to the first of at least 50,000 hungry civilians in Rutshuru territory, the scene of weeks of battles between rebel and government forces.
Under a hot sun, men, women and children lined up quietly in a church compound and a football stadium after the UN World Food Programme (WFP) convoy crossed the front lines.
Reuters