Congo clashes force a further 35,000 to flee -MSF
NAIROBI, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Clashes in northeastern Congo have forced 35,000 people to flee their homes in the past week, adding to a growing tide of residents uprooted by fighting between rival rebel factions, an aid agency said on Saturday. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it feared the latest exodus had brought the total number of people displaced by fighting in the area in the past few months to 155,000, calling it one of the biggest mass movements in Congo in recent years. Fighting between rebel factions has intensified around the strategic northeastern town of Beni in the past month, raising fears that a broad Congo peace deal signed in South Africa in December will fail to stem fighting in the country's chaotic war. MSF said rival rebel factions had fought artillery battles around the small town of Makeke on Tuesday, forcing an estimated 35,000 people to flee their homes, despite the signing of a truce by various rebel factions in the area on Monday. MSF said "extreme levels of violence" stopped aid workers gaining access to large areas, placing many people beyond the reach of relief workers operating in the remote region. "We see only part of the displaced population," said MSF Head of Mission Philippe Hamel in a statement. "There may be many more. We fear that in total there might be over 155,000 displaced people in the area between Butembo, Beni, Mambasa and Komanda alone," he said, referring to a cluster of towns in the mineral-rich northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, towards the border with Uganda. Further south, thousands of people fled this week after rebels clashed with pro-government forces near the lakeside port of Uvira, which has changed hands several times in recent months. Congo's warring parties signed a deal in December to share power and reunify the vast country that has been divided since war broke out in August 1998, sucking in six foreign armies. Many foreign soldiers have pulled out, but local militia violence has surged in the vacuum they left behind, prolonging a war which has already killed as estimated two million people.
