UN starts Great Lakes peace tour

By Mark Doyle
BBC world affairs correspondent

800,000 people were killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994

The UN Security Council has begun a tour of Africa's Great Lakes region to see how the cycle of wars and massacres of civilians there can be tackled.

Over the past 10 years, at least 4.5 million civilians have either been killed in pogroms or died from hunger and disease as a result of conflict.

The Council is visiting four war-torn states: Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Uganda.

On Saturday, 15 African leaders signed an accord to bring peace to the region.

'Daunting task'

The Great Lakes region centres on a geographical fault line called the Rift Valley, which runs like a spine up the body of Africa. But the spine is broken.

Click below for a more detailed map of the area

Enlarge Map

Cross-border wars, ethnic massacres and hunger and deprivation are all rife here.

The past decade began with the genocide in Rwanda.

War then spread like a cancer across the vast territory of Congo and has devastated all of the countries of the region.

The UN Security Council ambassadors are touring Africa after holding an unusual meeting in Nairobi, Kenya - outside their regular base in New York. That meeting concerned mainly Sudan.

"I think that the Security Council has got a new and stronger determination to actually go into the field and actually see what they can do," council spokesman Jean Victor Ncolo said.

The diplomats will be pressing African leaders to live up to commitments they have themselves made to restore peace to the Great Lakes region.

It is a daunting task, but the potential economic rewards of peace would be huge.

DR Congo has one of the world's mightiest river systems, for example, which, if there were peace, could provide vast quantities of hydro-electric power.