GOMA, Congo - Congolese rebel forces advanced on the eastern city of Goma yesterday, threatening to overwhelm government troops and a 17,000-strong UN force deployed to halt a return to all-out war.
Most civilian staff left the UN headquarters north of the lakeside town for a compound on the shore of Lake Kivu nearer the Rwandan border, accessible by boat, staff said.
Four days of fighting since Tutsi rebels launched a new offensive on Sunday have displaced tens of thousands of civilians in North Kivu province, racked by continuous violence despite the end of Congo's 1998-2003 regional war.
Neighbouring Rwanda, whose 1994 genocide is intricately tied up in years of ethnic bloodshed in eastern Congo, accused Congolese forces of shooting across the nearby border.
"There was an incursion at the border when Congolese forces of FARDC (army) fired into Rwanda," Rwandan foreign minister Rosemary Museminali said in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
Rwandan troops did not pursue the Congolese troops, she said.
However, FARDC colonel Jonas Padiri told a reporter at Kibati, at the entrance to Congo's Virunga National Park around 10km north of Goma, that his forces had been targeted by incoming fire from the Rwandan side of the border.
"It started during the night and continued until just now. I have no orders to fire," Col Padiri said.
As he was speaking, blasts and flashes of weaponry could be heard and seen coming from the border area.
"Well, you can see for yourself that it's coming from the Rwandan side," Col Padiri said.
The UN peacekeeping force MONUC has been backing Congolese troops in operations against rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
The CNDP accuses Congo's army of collaborating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which includes Hutu militias and former Rwandan soldiers responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The head of MONUC said it was "stretched to the limit".
The UN Security Council on Tuesday night expressed "grave concern" and called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties.
- (Reuters)