Healthspan Blog

By Finbarr O'Reilly

JOMBA, Congo (Reuters) - A United Nations envoy met Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda for talks to seek peace in eastern Congo on Sunday as fresh fighting flared in North Kivu province.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to try to end the conflict in east Democratic Republic of Congo, met Nkunda at Jomba not far from the borders with Rwanda and Uganda.

Earlier, a U.N. official and a witness reported heavy exchanges of artillery, rocket and small arms fire near the village of Ndeko, about 110 km (70 miles) north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Obasanjo, who held talks on Saturday with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, is seeking to prevent the fighting in North Kivu from escalating into a repeat of a wider 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in neighboring states.

Weeks of combat between Nkunda's rebels and government troops and their militia allies have displaced around a quarter of a million civilians, creating what aid agencies call a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation in east Congo.

Escorted by Indian peacekeepers, Obasanjo flew in by helicopter to Jomba, in the foothills of the Virunga mountains, where he greeted Nkunda with a hug.

He also inspected a guard of honor of Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) rebels.

"It would be better for them to be part of a national army rather than for them to be called rebels. That is what we are here to try and do," he said.

A witness on the road just south of Ndeko, which is 60 km (40 miles) northwest of where Obasanjo met Nkunda, told Reuters: "There is a lot of fighting going on. They are using heavy weapons, rockets and artillery, as well as small arms.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission also confirmed the clashes.

"We have had a flash report of heavy fighting since seven this morning (12 a.m. EST) at Ndeko. We have sent a patrol out to see what is going on," said spokesman Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich.

Neither the U.N. nor the witness could confirm who was involved in Sunday's fighting but Nkunda's fighters have previously clashed with both government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu rebels, known as the FDLR, in the area.

Nkunda accuses Kabila of arming and using the FDLR to fight alongside his weak and chaotic army units. The Congolese president, meanwhile, accuses neighboring Rwanda of supporting Nkunda's four year rebellion.

Nkunda initially took up arms saying he was fighting to defend fellow Tutsis in Congo from attack by the FDLR but, after marching to the gates of Goma last month, he is now calling for direct negotiations with the president.

Kabila has so far refused and there are fears that fighting could degenerate into a conflict similar to Congo's 1998-2003 war, which sucked in six neighboring armies and killed over 5 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)

(Additional reporting by David Lewis; Writing by David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher)

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)