Fears as DR Congo fighting flares

Last year's elections were supposed to end the DR Congo conflict

The UN's emergency relief chief says he fears many more people could be displaced by fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Speaking in the town of Bukavu on a four-day tour of the region, John Holmes described the humanitarian situation as deplorable.

Extra troops are being sent to the region to help the army fight rebels led by a renegade general.

More than 200,000 people have fled their homes this year, the UN says.

Mr Holmes said fighting was confined to parts of the single province of North Kivu, but warned the crisis might worsen in a large country like DR Congo - the size of western Europe.

"If the fighting gets worse, what we really fear is another big wave of displacement and possibly the kind of atrocities that have gone with that in the past," Mr Holmes added.

Some four million people are believed to have died during DR Congo's five-year conflict, which officially ended in 2002.

Helicopter gunship

The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in North Kivu says that fierce fighting is continuing in at least two parts of the province.

Government troops are surrounded in Katale, where the latest fighting began last week, our correspondent says.

The army is using an attack helicopter against the rebels - the first time the government has used these in DR Congo, he says.

The rebels are reported to be near Sake, the last town before the North Kivu capital, Goma.

In Sake, some people have attacked vehicles belonging to UN peacekeepers, accusing them of siding with the rebels.

The UN has some 17,000 troops in DR Congo - the largest such force in the world.

But in other areas, men loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda have pulled out of villages near the Rwandan border, to be replaced by ethnic Hutu Rwandan rebels.

Rwandan warning

Ethnic tension following the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda lies at the heart of the fighting.

Profile: Gen Nkunda

Gen Nkunda says he is protecting Congolese Tutsis from the forces who carried out the genocide and then crossed the border.

Rwanda has twice invaded DR Congo, saying it wants to stop attacks by Hutu rebels and our correspondent says the news that these militias have moved into villages on its border could antagonise Rwanda.

In the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said his government was ready to mediate between the two forces but also issued a warning.

"Rwanda will be extremely concerned if the genocidal militants of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) profit from this unrest to use their military force against our government," he said, according to the AFP news agency.

"We will take whatever measures are necessary to dissuade whoever threatens the integrity of Rwanda."

Elections last year, won by President Joseph Kabila, were supposed to draw a line under years of conflict in DR Congo.