OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec 21 (OneWorld) - The United Nations and several independent groups are warning that renewed fighting in the eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) threatens a major humanitarian catastrophe in the six-year-old conflict that has claimed nearly four million lives.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Monday that recent fighting between rival units of the Congolese army has displaced more than 180,000 civilians. The UN and other mediators said they are trying to work out an immediate end to the hostilities to stabilize the situation.

"Forcing civilians to flee into the forest has been one of the worst killers in the Congo wars," said Alison Des Forges, HRW's senior expert on central Africa. "Fleeing civilians are left without adequate food, water or medical aid." She said most of the displaced are women and children, many of whom have been constantly on the run over the past month when fighting first broke out.

The UN peace-keeping operation in the DRC, known as MONUC, said the most recent violence flared Sunday in North Kivu province where one faction of the national armed forces attempted to push back another faction from its positions. Soldiers who have complained of not receiving rations reportedly attacked civilians who were fleeing the fighting.

A UN assessment team reported that four villages around the town of Kanyabayonga close to the Ugandan border had been destroyed and several others badly damaged in the violence.

"Unless the violence stops immediately, this massive displacement will have disastrous consequences for civilians," said the UN's emergency relief coordinator, Undersecretary General Jan Egeland Sunday. "It is too dangerous to deliver aid to them at this point."

The International Crisis Group (ICG) charged that Rwanda, which reportedly sent troops into the DRC in late November, has also contributed to the conflict.

Kigali has denied sending forces across the border, but MONUC confirmed this past weekend that both arms and reinforcements had moved into the Congo from Rwanda, apparently to support former rebels who were supposed to have been integrated into the army after a peace agreement was reached 18 months ago.

Rwanda's intervention was triggered by the movement of DRC government troops into Kanyabayonga, precisely to ensure that Rwanda did not follow through with threats to invade the region. Ethnic tensions between Kanyarwanda-speakers and others had risen sharply in the region--and within the army.

Rwanda had long complained about the continued presence of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)--Hutu forces many of whose leaders were implicated in the genocide against Rwandan Tutsis in 1994--in eastern Congo, and warned that it would take preemptive action to eliminate the threat.

"Kigali has legitimate concerns about the FDLR in the Congo that need to be addressed," said Susan Linnee, ICG's Central Africa Project director, but sending troops to the region "is a reckless decision to play with fire."

The advance of the Congolese rebel forces, mainly Kanyarwanda-speakers who previously dominated the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy, apparently forced other army troops to retreat earlier this month. As they fled, the soldiers looted two towns north of Kanyabayonga, firing into the air as they arrived and frightening residents into headlong flight.

According to one UN humanitarian worker cited by HRW, the current exodus in the region is the largest single displacement since peace accords were first concluded in 2002.

The fighting in eastern Congo marks the latest crisis in six years of conflict that began in August 1998 when Rwanda and Rwandan-backed forces crossed into the DRC. Their goal was to oust the regime of the former President Laurent Kabila and scatter Rwandan Hutus who had become increasingly active in the region.

The conflict has been the most lethal of any civil conflict since World War II. Earlier this month, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released a mortality study that concluded that 3.8 million people had died in the DRC since the Rwandan incursion. The vast majority--as much as 98 percent--of the victims were civilians who died of malnutrition or disease resulting from their displacement.

The study also found that about 31,000 people lost their lives each month to after-effects of the conflict. At least half of all victims are children under the age of five, according to the study.

In spite of the enormous death toll, the conflict has garnered little international or media attention, and even less humanitarian assistance from major western powers. The UN dispatched nearly 11,000 peacekeepers to the DRC in 2002 to monitor compliance with the peace process; but this is considered a mere drop in the bucket given the monumental size of the country--roughly equivalent to all U.S. territory east of the Mississippi River.

Many analysts believe that Rwanda exaggerated the threat posed by the FDLR fighters who number between 8,000 and 10,000. They are a grave danger to civilians in the Kivus on whom they prey but "they are too disorganized to pose an imminent military or political threat" to Rwanda, said the ICG.

Nonetheless, ICG said the key to achieving peace and stabilizing the region lies with the definitive withdrawal of Rwandan forces from the area in exchange for the disarmament of the FDLR--both of which have been promised in a succession of regional and bilateral security agreements. A major problem is that the Congolese army has been reluctant to take on the FDLR, while the UN force lacks the capacity to do so.

"Forcible disarmament is called for, but the Congo's own army is too weak, (and) MONUC is unwilling and in its present configuration perhaps incapable as well," said ICG which called for "creative thinking."

"It is time to end the cycle of impunity," the ICG said Friday. "Donors should link progress on these agreements directly to their aid and those who undermine the agreements need to be held personally responsible for their actions."

MONUC has a Security Council mandate to protect civilians at imminent risk of death, but they have not intervened in the latest bout of fighting.

"MONUC should act according to the UN Security Council Resolution 1493 of 28 July 2003," said Amnesty International in a statement issued Tuesday. The resolution authorizes the peace-keeping forces "to use all necessary means to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence" in Ituri and the Kivus.

In October, the Security Council authorized an increase in MONUC troops from 10,000 to nearly 16,000, but recently arrived troops have not yet made a significant difference on the ground in North Kivu, according to HRW.