Renewed fighting in northeastern Congo has forced over 100,000 people from their homes and a local peace deal has yet to halt the exodus from the vast country's latest battlefield, aid workers said today.
Months of clashes between rival rebel groups have intensified around the town of Beni, near the Ugandan border, raising fears a broad deal signed in South Africa last month to end the war could go the way of previous failed peace bids.
Rebel and pro-government forces said they had clashed further south near the border with Burundi yesterday, killing several people and sending thousands fleeing for the frontier.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and other aid organisations estimated that some 110,000 people had been displaced by the fighting around Beni, including pygmies who had been forced to leave their homes deep in the Ituri Forest for the first time.
"There was panic as the frontline got nearer, and they simply voted with their feet," MSF's Nicholas Louis told Reuters by satellite phone from Beni.
Aid workers said villages and towns emptied as soldiers from two rival rebel factions advanced on Beni, held by a third rebel group.
The three rebel factions battling for control of the mineral-rich region signed a local ceasefire on Monday, but aid workers in Beni said people were still on the move today.
"The situation is very fluid, so every time we think the situation is calm and stable, things change overnight," Michelle Brown of medical charity MERLIN said.
Unarmed UN observers monitoring the ceasefire reported no new incidents of fighting today, but a spokesman in Kinshasa said "they remained concerned by the situation".