Fresh Clashes in Congo

There has been sporadic fighting in the North Kivu province of the DRC for two days now, despite an official ceasefire between government and rebel forces. The Tutsi rebels led by General Laurent N'Kunda have been fighting with the local Pareco Mai-Mai militia.

According to the rebels, the Mai-Mai militia fights on behalf of President Joseph Kabila's government. Talking to the Associated Presss, a rebel spokesman said these clashes meant that the government has already broken the ceasefire.

"If they don't negotiate with us, then they leave us little choice," rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said. "We will start fighting again and we will continue until we take Kinshasa."

Rebel leader Laurent N'Kunda -- whose forces have surrounded Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu for days now -- was the first to threaten moving on the capital city Kinshasa, where President Joseph Kabila governs.

But considering the vast size of the DRC, it would be difficult for N'Kunda to transport his force of around 6,000 soldiers from the country's eastern border to the capital in the west, which is over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.

EU plays down talks of intervention force

The UN has confirmed the renewed fighting, saying that some international peacekeepers were caught in the crossfire at one point, though no UN casualties have been reported.

British and French foreign ministers David Milliband and Bernard Kouchner -- fresh from a visit to the region -- are playing down talk of an EU intervention force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has called for the Security Council to approve a "surge" of over 3,000 soldiers and police officers, in a bid to avoid a full scale war in the east of the country.

"The current crisis emanating from CDNP's [Tutsi rebels'] recent offensive clearly underscored that the resources available to [the UN security forces] are not commensurate to the security challenges on the ground," Mr. Ban wrote in a letter to the UN Security Council.

The existing UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- which is known by its French acronym MONUC -- is the largest in the world. 17,000 UN troops and police are already in the DRC, a country which is as large as Western Europe.

Humanitarian Crisis

Around a quarter of a million people are thought to have already fled their homes as a result of the fighting, and overstretched aid agencies are struggling to help them. The UN refugee agency UNHCR has also reported that three of the camps for displaced people in the region have been emptied and destroyed by N'Kunda's forces.

The current conflict is widely thought to be rooted in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the DRC government says that N'Kunda's Tutsi rebels are supported by the Tutsi government in Rwanda. But N'Kunda and the Rwandan authorities refute this.

"The prevailing assumption that the crisis is a matter between Rwanda and the DRC is wrong, contrary to what some in the international community continue to say," a Rwandan government statement reads. It defined the conflict in North Kivu as an "internal conflict".

DRC President Joseph Kabila, and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame will both take part in an African Union summit on Thursday Nov. 6 in Nairobi, Kenya. The summit's goal is to find solutions to the problems in the DRC, and it is possible that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will attend as well.