Congo violence creating humanitarian catastrophe: U.N.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The escalating violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is creating a humanitarian catastrophe and could have tragic consequences for the entire region, the U.N. chief said on Wednesday.

In a statement read to reporters by U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "the intensification and expansion of the conflict is creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions and threatens dire consequences on a regional scale."

She said Ban urged "all parties to immediately cease hostilities and to respect international humanitarian law."

"He deplores the use of civilians as human shields and their deliberate targeting by belligerents," Okabe said.

In Congo, rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda advanced on the eastern city of Goma, scattering civilians and soldiers and threatening to overwhelm a 17,000-strong U.N. force, known as MONUC, trying to halt a return to all-out war.

Thousands of civilians and hundreds of Congolese government soldiers poured into Goma from the north. Shortly after Ban issued his statement, a spokesman for Nkunda loyalists said the rebels had declared a ceasefire.

It was not immediately clear how this would affect the flurry of diplomatic activity at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The U.N. Security Council, which failed on Tuesday to take action on an urgent request from MONUC chief Alan Doss for more troops, was planning to take up the issue again later on Wednesday.

GROWING SUSPICION ABOUT RWANDA

In an attempt to mediate the crisis on Congo's border with Rwanda, Okabe said Ban was dispatching two envoys to the region to meet with the Congolese and Rwandan governments -- deputy U.N. peacekeeping chief Edmond Mulet to Congo and U.N. special envoy to Zimbabwe Haile Menkerios to Rwanda.

Ban's decision to send Menkerios to Kigali reflects a growing concern among U.N. member states that Rwanda may be providing military support to Nkunda, as Kinshasa has alleged for weeks.

Ban made clear that he, too, was concerned about the role Rwanda may be playing in the conflict, saying in his statement that he was "particularly alarmed at the reported exchange of heavy weapons across the (Congo-)Rwanda border."

Asked by reporters why Ban had referred to "human shields" in his statement, Okabe said both sides in the fighting were preventing U.N. peacekeepers in Congo from evacuating civilians.

Among those in need of evacuation were "humanitarian workers, including a double amputee nun who has been injured in the fighting," Okabe said.

"I cannot emphasize how desperate the situation on the ground is right now," she said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said tens of thousands of people in North Kivu province are now in urgent need of temporary shelter, water, food and medical supplies, and described the situation in the province's town of Goma as tense.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said that up to 45,000 uprooted people had left displaced persons camps and headed to Goma on Wednesday. The agency also said over 1,000 villagers fled to neighboring Uganda with many more expected to follow.

(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis in Geneva; editing by Eric Beech)