ZAIREAN troops pulled back in a disarray yesterday in the face of a Tutsi rebel advance in eastern Zaire that has uprooted nearly 300,000 desperate refugees.
A spokesman for the Tutsi rebels - known as Banyamulenge - said they had captured three towns and were besieging the provincial capital of Bukavu.
Zairean troops, in conflict with ethnic Tutsi rebels, were last night fortifying their positions in the once beautiful but run down town by Lake Kivu.
Aid workers in the region have been surprised by the success of the rebels. Carrying automatic weapons and moving swiftly through the hills, the guerrillas have proved more than a match for the ragged and ill disciplined Zairean army (FAZ).
Zairean soldiers were said to be among the tide of humanity which has swept northwards towards Bukavu.
Most of those fleeing the fighting are Rwandan and Burundian refugees who have come to eastern Zaire to avoid ethnic conflict in their own countries.
The Zairean authorities say that a number of refugee camps, whose residents are almost exclusively Hutus, have been attacked by the Banyamulenge rebels but there has been no independent confirmation of this.
In their panic, the refugees have distanced themselves from their food sources in the camps. Aid agencies are warning there could soon be a humanitarian disaster.
"This crisis has all the ingredients for a humanitarian emergency," said a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees yesterday.
The UN World Food Programme said it only had supplies for three or four days in its warehouses in Bukavu. This was enough for refugees already in the town but not enough for new arrivals, the agency said.
So tar, more than 60,000 of those who fled their refugee camps last weekend are said to have reached Bukavu.
The fighting, which began a few weeks ago, has its roots in animosity between the region's indigenous Zaireans and the Banyamulenge, ethnic Tutsis whose settlement in the Mulenge mountains of South Kivu goes back 200 years.
The settlers, who number about a third of a million, are widely resented because of their superior wealth in cattle and land.
Denied Zairean citizenship in 1981, the Banyamulenge have become increasingly marginalised. With elections promised for next year, some politicians have decided to play the ethnic card by whipping up local jealousies.
Earlier this month, the Banyamulenge were ordered by the deputy governor of South Kivu to leave Zaire "or be hunted down as rebels". In their struggle to resist, the fighters claim they are protecting their people from genocide.
Diplomatic sources believe the rebel aim is to empty the camps of Rwandan Hutu refugees and gain control of enough Zairean territory to force the hand of the Zairean authorities.
The conflict risks igniting the tinderbox of ethnic hatreds which increasingly characterise the region. Already there have been clashes between the FAZ and the largely Tutsi Rwandan troops who stand accused by Zaire of arming and assisting their fellow Tutsis. It is no secret that some Banyanmulenge fought with the Rwandan army which put an end to the genocide and went on to form Rwanda's government.
Despite the denials of the Rwandan government, some analysts believe the Rwandan forces could be engaged in a tit for tat with Zaire which is widely believed to be supporting Rwandan Hutu extremists based in refugee camps in the Kivu region.
. Mr Dominic MacSorley, Concern's director for Rwanda, said yesterday that a charter plane had just flown into Bukavu to pick up 12 international staff and evacuate them to Nairobi.