Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo fought pro-government militiamen for a second day in the town of Kiwanja yesterday, forcing thousands to flee.
A wider ceasefire between the rebels and the government was holding, however, and diplomats were trying to assemble a regional peace summit tomorrow in Kenya.
Journalists who visited Kiwanja, in the east of the country, saw several thousand people on the roads, including mothers with babies, as insurgents loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda searched houses.
Kiwanja is about 45 miles north of the provincial capital, Goma, and the clashes between rebels and a militia known as the Mai Mai appear to be taking place on the town's outskirts or in the hills and fields of coffee and corn beyond.
On the edge of town, hundreds of people took shelter at a roofless, abandoned school beside a UN base manned by Indian peacekeepers.
Fighting in the DRC intensified in August and has since displaced around 250,000 people, forcing exhausted refugees to struggle through the countryside, lugging belongings, children and livestock. Tropical rainstorms have added to the misery.
After forcing the army into a humiliating retreat and reaching the outskirts of Goma, Gen Nkunda called a ceasefire on October 29th. The rebel leader has warned, however, that war could resume if the government does not accept his demand for direct negotiations.
The government says it will talk - but only with all rebel and militia groups, not just with Gen Nkunda.
A regional summit is expected tomorrow in Nairobi and will be attended by DRC president Joseph Kabila, Rwandan president Paul Kagame and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. Mr Kagame is believed to wield strong influence over Gen Nkunda's Tutsi-led rebels.
The conflict in eastern DRC is fuelled by festering ethnic hatred left over from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the DRC's civil wars from 1996-2002, which drew neighbouring countries in in a rush to plunder Congo's mineral wealth.
Gen Nkunda claims the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to the DRC after helping slaughter a half-million Rwandan Tutsis.
Gen Nkunda now says he is fighting to liberate all of the country from a corrupt government. Rebels accuse DRC allies Angola and Zimbabwe of mobilising to back government forces, while the government says Rwanda is helping the insurgents.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday's fighting, which appears isolated around Kiwanja, stopped it from visiting refugee camps near Rutshuru that had been deserted. Residents have said the rebels forced them to leave, but it was unclear why.
The UN children's agency criticised the Mai Mai for recruiting 37 children to fight rebels just last week.