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Fighting Swells In Congo

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The Associated Press

Published: October 27, 2008

KIBUMBA, Congo - Rebels seized an east Congo army base and the headquarters of a refuge for some of the world's last mountain gorillas in heavy fighting Sunday that sent thousands fleeing, U.N. officials and rebels said.

An unknown number of soldiers, rebels and civilians were killed in the renewed fighting in North Kivu province, according to civilians.
Government troops raced down the road north from the provincial capital of Goma to reinforce a counterattack Sunday morning. One tank careened into a group of fleeing civilians and killed three teenage boys, civilians said.

Sunday's attack marked the second time rebels have seized the base since Aug. 28, when rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda went on the offensive after accusing government troops of violating a January cease-fire.

Congo's government said that two battalions of "foreign soldiers" helped Nkunda take Rumangabo on Sunday. It has charged that Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated government sent hundreds of troops to fight alongside Nkunda in the first attack on the army base - charges Rwanda denies and U.N. officials say appear unfounded.

Some 15,000 civilians escaped Sunday, the United Nations said, among more than 200,000 people who have fled their homes in just two months and joining at least 1.2 million displaced by previous conflicts.

"There's heavy fighting. A lot of people have been killed - rebels, soldiers, civilians. We're lucky we got away," said Jean-Baptiste Bushu Mbusho, a builder who works for the Italian aid agency AVSI.

The United Nations deployed a rapid reaction force on Sunday and appealed to both sides to cease fire - at least to allow civilians to escape.

Nkunda's fighters, who claim to be protecting the region's Tutsi minority, have occupied parts of Virunga National Park for nearly a year, but attacked the headquarters for the first time Sunday.

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