ZAIREAN soldiers were locked in intense fighting with Tutsi-led rebels yesterday for control of a road 19 the strategic town of Kisangani, while thousands of desperate refugees fled from the combat.
At the same time, France launched its latest attempt to persuade EU partners to support international intervention in Zaire, but appeared to have little prospect of success.
An Agence France Presse photographer who got to within 500 metres of the government forces forward positions reported heavy fighting with the use of multiple rocket-launchers and mortars.
Fighting has been raging for four days 60 km north-east of the city, on the road towards Bafwasende and the Ugandan border.
Gen Numbi Kalume, in charge of government forces, said his troops had repulsed the rebel advance toward Kisangani and pushed the enemy back several kilometres. He said the rebels had lost some 50 men, including a general and a colonel, their field headquarters had been destroyed and they were forced to retreat 15 km. The photographer said they were forced back even further earlier yesterday.
Despite being pushed back from Kisangani, the rebels, from the Democratic Alliance for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire, who have captured a string of towns and occupied around one-fifth of territory in eastern Zaire since October, on Wednesday seemed to be progressing on other fronts.
They seized another key town, Kongolo, in the south-east of the country, on the threshold of diamond-rich eastern Kasai.
The mainly-Tutsi rebels, led by a former marxist, Mr Laurent-Desire Kabila, appear to be continuing their advance into the rich mining province of Shaba in the south, where they have already captured Kabalo, Manono and Moba. Like Kabalo, Kongolo is situated on the railway line linking Shaba to Kindu.
About 100 km south-east of Kisangani, some 60,000 refugees, mainly Rwandan Hutus, fleeing the advance of anti-government rebels, were camped yesterday at Ubundu, desperately seeking international aid.
At a meeting in Brussels yesterday, France, which supports the government of Mr Mobutu, said it would continue to draw the attention of its EU partners to the plight of the refugees but appeared to have little prospect of persuading them to launch an intervention.
Diplomats from other EU states said they were ready to listen to the French proposals but said anything that involved sending troops into the area would not win approval. The US has also ruled out support for a multinational force.
In Geneva, the United Nations said a UN envoy was asking to visit Zaire as soon as possible to verify reports of massacres and mass human rights violations in the war-torn country.