Renewed fighting in eastern DRC

New fighting stops DR Congo aid
Virtue Online - West Chester,PA,USA

Renewed fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced the United Nations refugee agency to suspend aid to displaced people. The UNHCR said hundreds more people have fled their homes because of the latest clashes in North Kivu province. A week of clashes between the army and fighters from the FDLR of Rwandan Hutu rebels has killed 20 people after three months of relative calm, the UN says. The army says it is planning a major offensive against the FDLR ... The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Kinshasa says FDLR fighters attacked a camp where 1,500 people were sheltering on Thursday, forcing them to scatter ... UNHCR officials said most of the displaced people are women and children who are sheltering in public buildings. Some said their homes had been destroyed and their possessions looted, while some parents said they had lost touch with their children. The FDLR includes some of those Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide, who fled to DR Congo after Tutsis took power in Rwanda ... The displacement in the Rutshuru area, some 70km north of the provincial capital, Goma, comes three months after the signing of an accord in Goma between the government and a different armed group, led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda. Gen Nkunda had also demanded that the FDLR be disarmed - he took up arms, saying he was protecting Congolese Tutsis from Hutu attacks ...