THE ZAIREAN rebel leader, Mr Laurent Kabila, said yesterday his forces had captured the strategic town of Lubutu, and appealed to the UN to help some 170,000 refugees trapped in the fighting.
Mr Kabila said his forces overran the makeshift Tingi Tingi refugee camp on Saturday, dislodging Rwandan and Burundian refugees who had fled fighting further east.
"Many hundreds of refugees are coming and our men have been ordered not to harm them. .. The United Nations is invited to go to Tingi Tingi to help the refugees to return home and help repatriate them," Mr Kabila told a news conference in the eastern city of Goma.
He suggested aid agencies would be able to fly into Tingi Tingi immediately to encourage the refugees to return.
Aid workers who were evacuated on Saturday from Kisangani, Zaire's third largest city, reported seeing tens of thousands of refugees at Tingi Tingi, 200 km to the south east near the town of Lubutu, preparing to flee the rebel advance on Friday. Doctors said up to 40 refugees a day were dying of hunger and disease.
The Tingi Tingi refugees are said to include members of the Interahamwe militia and former Rwandan government army held responsible for the 1994 Rivanda genocide of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms Sadako Ogata, appealed on Saturday to both sides in the conflict to spare refugees and grant access to aid agencies.
The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL) controls most of eastern Zaire after launching a war in October to topple President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Mr Kabila said his troops captured Tingi Tingi and Lubutu after heavy fighting on Saturday afternoon in which one rebel and 25 Zairean soldiers were killed. Lubutu is the last town on the road from Bukavu and boasts an airstrip.
The rebel advance towards Kisangani threatens the integrity of the vast, mineral rich country of Zaire.
Mr Kabila said yesterday his troops were on the verge of taking the government stronghold of Kisangani. "The fall of this stronghold is now just a matter of days away," he warned. "Our soldiers are awaiting the order to attack."
The rebel leader ruled out any ceasefire before negotiations, adding that he had refused to sign an agreement to end the fighting on a visit to South Africa last week, despite foreign diplomatic pressure to do so.
"The Alliance waits for an invitation saying that Presidents Mobutu has written to the organisers to say that he personally will negotiate. Only then will we negotiate," Mr Kabila said.
The President of South Africa, Mr Nelson Mandela, met Mr Kabila and an aide to Mr Mobutu last week in an attempt to broker peace negotiations.
Mr Mobutu, now in his Riviera mansion in the south of France recovering from a prostate cancer operation last August, has decided to delay his return home for a few days to pursue his search for a solution to the crisis, an aide said yesterday. The delay is unrelated to Mr Mobutu's health, the aide added. His entourage had earlier said he would return home at the weekend.
A Zaire defence ministry statement read on state radio criticised the decision by aid agencies to pull out of Kisangani, arguing it violated their mandate.
The rebels, who have captured a swathe of territory in east Zaire around 1,000 km long, responded to a January 20th counteroffensive by attacking on several fronts, throwing the notoriously ill disciplined Zaire army on the defensive.
On Friday of last week they claimed they had taken Kindu, 400 km south of Kisangani, a claim confirmed by independent sources but denied by the Zaire government.
Mr Kabila said he had advanced to 50 km beyond Kindu after fierce fighting on Saturday, capturing a large quantity of armaments in the process.
The rebels have identified Kisangani as a target. The city is a gateway to east Zaire and the last navigable point on the Zaire river that flows south west to Kinshasa.