Rebels tighten grip in seized swaths of eastern Congo

TONGO, Congo -- Tutsi-led rebels tightened their hold on newly seized areas of eastern Congo on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands of civilians out of makeshift refugee camps and stopping some from fleeing to government-held territory.

Aid organizations said they were worried about a lack of food and shelter.

European officials offered sympathy but no concrete promise of military reinforcements for the Congolese troops and U.N. peacekeepers routed by rebel forces in the sudden and dramatic escalation of eastern Congo's civil war in the past week.

The rebels appeared to be maintaining a unilateral cease-fire, focusing on consolidating territories that stretch to the doorstep of the provincial capital, Goma, instead of taking the city.

The rebels, who said people were leaving the refugee camps of their own free will, asserted that they stopped short of Goma in hopes of stopping the chaos that had engulfed it as government troops fled along with tens of thousands of refugees. However, Goma was also the site of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda's greatest defeat when U.N. attack helicopters fired on his fighters advancing on the city in December, killing hundreds of them. It was not clear if that experience influenced his decision.

The area Nkunda has seized is a minerally and agriculturally rich area that commands much of the access to the Rwandan and Ugandan borders.

Britain's minister for Africa said the U.K. could send troops if Nkunda's cease-fire fails but the first reinforcements should be soldiers deployed elsewhere in the country with the U.N. force, MONUC.

British Foreign Minister David Miliband, who rushed to the region with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner after the outbreak of fighting, downplayed the possibility of an EU peacekeeping force.

"Nothing is being ruled out, and that remains the point," he told reporters in the Rwandan capital after leaving a refugee camp outside Goma. "But we have a 17,000-strong MONUC force, and that is of course the first call for security support in the Congo."

Kouchner said his government was committed to humanitarian assistance, but not necessarily sending in troops.

"I repeat, 17,000 soldiers are already deployed," he said.

In Rutshuru, a large town 45 miles (75 kilometers) north of Goma, two groups of refugees hefted bundles of belongings as they plodded home. Some said they were forced by the rebels to leave camps for displaced persons.

"They beat us with sticks and told us that we must get out," said Daria Nyarangaruye, a silver-haired woman with a rosary around her neck and a spent bullet in her hand.

Nyarangaruye said she had been forced on Saturday to leave a camp near peacekeepers in Tongo, a hilltop town in the shade of volcanic Mount Nyiragongo. She spoke near her home by a roadside six miles (10 kilometers) from Rutshuru.

Associated Press journalists also saw rebels blocking civilians who wanted to cross front lines to return to government-held areas.

Most refugees wouldn't give details or their names for fear of retaliation.

A rebel leader who introduced himself as Maj. Muhire said refugees were leaving voluntarily. He said they were being "held hostage" at camps by government troops before the rebels arrived and rebels had told them they were free to go because the area was "liberated."

Rebels inaugurated a new local administration in Rutshuru and held a celebratory rally but only about 500 people showed up at the stadium venue, most of them unenthusiastic.

The French aid group Doctors Without Borders said it was "extremely concerned about the tens of thousands of people currently on the move, fleeing the fighting." It said they were in "urgent need of clean water, basic items like blankets and shelter materials, and food."

Dozens of people already have died of cholera or severe diarrhea for lack of clean water.

Nkunda told the AP by telephone on Saturday that he has opened a humanitarian corridor to allow refugees to come home and for aid to get through.

But there was no sign of any food getting through Saturday, with aid workers saying some contractors are refusing to move food because of the insecurity.

Aid workers who tried to distribute food six miles (10 kilometers) north of Goma on Friday stopped because there was a near-riot among refugees, some of whom said they had not eaten for three days.

Kouchner and Miliband met with Congo President Joseph Kabila Saturday before flying to Goma, where they immediately went to visit refugees.

They arrived at the camp at sunset as people were wandering around with their bundles of belongings in search of a dry spot to spend yet another night in the open.

Kouchner said he and Miliband want "to understand why, despite so many efforts, no peace has come, why there have to be hundreds of thousands of people forced into a horrific situation. Why? Why?"

Nkunda's rebellion has threatened to reignite the back-to-back wars that afflicted Congo from 1996 to 2002, drawing in a half dozen African nations.

The conflict is fueled by festering ethnic hatred from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's unrelenting civil wars. Nkunda claims Congo's government has not protected Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter a half-million Rwandan Tutsis.

All sides are believed to fund the conflict by illegally mining Congo's vast mineral riches, giving them no financial interest in stopping the fighting.

The newly appointed minister of mines, Martin Kabwelulu Labilo, asked about this exploitation on independent Raga TV, said the stripping of the country's mineral wealth was "a geological and economic catastrophe" that caused him "huge shame."

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Associated Press Writers Anita Powell in Kigali, Rwanda, Cecile Roux in Paris and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.