Video footage showing shocking scenes of massacres and mutilation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been released by aid workers.

The killings are the result of fighting between two ethnic groups in the north-east of the country.

One estimate suggests as many as 7,000 people have died in the past three weeks.

The area is under the nominal control of troops from Uganda who are assisting rebels fighting against the government of President Laurent Kabila.

Gaping machete wounds on women and children, bodies stacked in a church and a man wandering through a burning town with an arrow through his shoulder.

The pictures depict an unbelievable horror in a country enduring warfare and ethnic strife on a bewildering number of fronts.

Taken over several weeks by the Christian Blind Mission, the most recent footage shows the third attack within 18 hours on the town of Blukwa.

Appeal to world

The group's director, David MacAllister, told journalists they had decided to release the video as an appeal to the world to do something.

Referring to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, he said the international community saw the warning signs then but did no t intervene quickly enough - and has since spent millions of pounds discussing what went wrong.

Political rivalry and land disputes between the Lendu and Hema communities lie behind the clashes which have been caught on camera.

Ugandan troops and rebel forces do not appear to be attempting to end the fighting.

The CBM says it is sending extra medical supplies and the international Red Cross is aiming to get supplies to 80,000 people who have been displaced by the clashes.