KIWANJA - Aid workers in eastern Congo began feeding tens of thousands of hungry refugees in rebel-held areas yesterday as a UN-appointed envoy began talks aimed at averting a wider war.
Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his special envoy for eastern Congo, met Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda and then flew on to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
Mr Obasanjo, tasked with seeking a lasting solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, was to hold talks with Congolese president Joseph Kabila and said that he wanted to meet the rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda.
After weeks of fighting, UN aid workers yesterday handed out rations of maize and lentils to the first of at least 50,000 hungry civilians in Rutshuru territory, the scene of weeks of battles between rebel and government forces.
People lined up in a church compound and a football stadium after the UN World Food Programme convoy crossed the front lines.
- (Reuters)