WORLD> Africa
Congo soldiers fleeing Goma along with refugees
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-30 09:55

The UN says its biggest peacekeeping mission, a 17,000-strong force, is now stretched to the limit with the surge in fighting and needs more troops quickly. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uruguay and South Africa are the main contributors to the existing force.

Thousands of civilians have fled fresh fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo closed on the strategic eastern city of Goma, sparking chaotic scenes as government forces and 45,000 refugees scrambled to leave. [Agencies]

But hopes for immediate backup from the European Union dimmed. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday the EU had considered sending troops to reinforce the peacekeepers in Congo but some countries refused.

Fears have grown of a wider war that could drag in Congo's neighbors. Congo suffered back-to-back wars from 1996 to 2002 that embroiled eight African nations and became a rush at the country's vast mineral wealth.

The unrest in eastern Congo has been fueled by festering hatreds left over from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which half a million Tutsis were slaughtered. More than a million Hutu extremists fled to Congo where they regrouped in a brutal militia that helps fuel the continuing conflict in Congo.

Rebel leader Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi and former general, quit the army several years ago, claiming the government of President Joseph Kabila was not doing enough to protect minority Tutsis from the Hutu extremists.

On Wednesday, retreating government soldiers entered Goma along with the fleeing refugees, grabbing cars, taxis and motorbikes to help in their escape.

About 15 soldiers briefly commandeered a car carrying an AP cameraman and photographer and demanded to be driven about 50 miles to the town of Saki.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" yelled one soldier in front of an airfield near downtown Goma.

The soldiers grabbed boxes that looked like ammunition from the UN compound at the airport, piled them into the SUV and took off. Some of the soldiers piled onto the roof, others hung from open doors. The journalists finally managed to get away, jumping out of the moving vehicle at a military police checkpoint.

On another battlefront further north, government soldiers abandoned the town of Rutshuru and tens of thousands or refugees fled, according to UN officials and aid workers.

"It's incredibly dangerous," said Alice Gilbert, a project officer for the British medical agency Merlin. "Complete chaos broke out and everyone fled into the bush."

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