U.N. plans aid convoy into east Congo rebel zone

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - A United Nations aid convoy protected by U.N. peacekeepers will head into a rebel-held zone of east Congo on Monday to try to reach tens of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting, the U.N. said on Sunday.

The convoy will group staff and resources from U.N. agencies and humanitarian NGOs. It will leave Goma, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, and travel north to Rutshuru, taken by Tutsi rebels on Tuesday.

"Our priority is to restart the activities at many health centres in the area of Rutshuru and Kiwanja. We're taking health supplies, water, and sanitation," Gloria Fernandez, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Congo told reporters in Goma.

It will be the first coordinated international effort to reach at least 50,000 displaced civilians whom U.N. officials fear have left unprotected camps around Rutshuru, 70 km (45 miles) north of Goma. The refugees are thought to be roaming the bush, seeking safe shelter, food, water and care.

The recent offensive by fighters loyal to rebel General Laurent Nkunda, combined with killing and looting by renegade Congolese army troops, turned an already difficult humanitarian situation into one described as "catastrophic" by aid groups.

Fernandez called on both the forces of Nkunda and the Congolese army to let civilians move freely to areas where they felt safe and could receive help. Nkunda has announced the opening up of "humanitarian corridors" through rebel lines.

European, U.S. and U.N. envoys have criss-crossed the Great Lakes region in recent days, trying to prevent the newly resurgent Tutsi rebellion in the eastern Congolese borderlands from escalating into a rerun of Congo's 1998-2003 war.

After a weekend diplomatic shuttle that took them to Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania, the French and British foreign ministers called for more international aid to Congo's North Kivu.

A ceasefire by Nkunda appeared to be holding on Sunday, although authorities in Goma declared a night time curfew.

At Kibati, north of the provincial capital Goma, refugees among 70,000 people sheltering there said they were desperate for protection and would welcome troops from Europe to bolster the 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers already deployed in Congo.

"We want to return to our village, but only if there is security. I have not eaten for six days," said one elderly woman, Rgwasa Nyakaruhije. "We would be very happy if they sent in a European Union force."

Around her, displaced civilians huddled in groups in the muddy grass, some under umbrellas or parasols.

SECURITY IS PARAMOUNT

While appealing for more international aid and the securing of routes to deliver it, the French and British ministers, Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband, stopped short of announcing a deployment of European Union troops to Congo.

France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, had floated the proposal but encountered resistance from some member states.

Instead, the ministers recommended reinforcing the United Nations peacekeeping force in Congo, already the world's biggest but badly stretched across a nation the size of Western Europe.

Max Hadorn of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said restoring security was paramount. "It's less a question of being able to mobilize aid but rather of being able to enter different zones with security guaranteed," he said.

Aid group Oxfam said EU foreign ministers meeting in the French city of Marseille on Monday should agree to provide European troops as support for the U.N.'s peacekeeping force in eastern Congo so that aid agencies can deliver assistance.

"The European Union is well placed to rapidly provide the additional troops that the people of Congo desperately need," Oxfam said in a statement on Sunday.

An estimated one million people have been forced from their homes in North Kivu by two years of violence that has persisted despite the end of the 1998-2003 war in the vast, former Belgian colony, which is rich in copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds.

Kouchner and Miliband backed political solutions, including a regional summit that could be held next week to bring together the Congolese and Rwandan presidents, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, to discuss the conflict on their borders. Both Congo and Rwanda have accused each other of backing rival rebel groups.

The two presidents have signaled they are ready to take part in talks on ending intertwined insurgencies in Congo that trace their origin back to Rwanda's 1994 genocide. (Editing by Keith Weir)