Clashes between government forces and dissident General Laurent Nkunda’s fighters in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering efforts to deliver aid to thousands of civilians displaced from their homes by the violence, aid workers said.

"This is a worsening crisis," Claude Jibidar, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) country director in DRC, said on 7 September. "The fighting is uprooting more people every day and making it ever harder for WFP to reach them with the assistance they urgently need. We need at least US$12 million to buy more food in the region and move it in fast."

The latest outbreak of fighting pits the national army against fighters loyal to Nkunda. It has forced an estimated 40,000 people to flee their homes in recent days.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated 25,000 to 35,000 refugees have spent two nights in Bunagana town in Uganda's western Kisoro province bordering the DRC. During the day, most of the men cross back into the DRC to check on their properties, leaving behind 12,000-15,000 women and children.

Thousands of the displaced had also moved towards Goma from the town of Sake, 20km west of the capital of North Kivu, according to local sources in the area. Nkunda claimed to have captured Sake on 6 September.

"We captured Sake at 11.45am local time," the rebel leader told IRIN. "We forced out the regular army, but I have ordered my forces to withdraw to prevent the local population from being targeted by army shelling.”

The truce negotiated by the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) later took effect. "I really hope this fighting stops," Nkunda said. "From the beginning I have not asked for this war. Kinshasa is behind the fighting."

According to WFP, the fighting was restricting humanitarian access and food deliveries to areas beyond Goma. Roads were unsafe and on 6 September, a UN helicopter airlifting food to Masisi district had to turn back because of the conflict.

Civilians in cross-fire

Earlier, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes had met President Joseph Kabila to voice concern about the humanitarian situation in areas affected by the fighting.

"All armed groups should refrain from targeting civilians," Holmes told a news conference in Kinshasa on 5 September after his meeting with Kabila. "The government of the DRC must honour its commitment to protect the entire civilian population on its territory."

Local residents in Sake said some of the displaced were heading towards Mungunga. Rev Jean Balengele, contacted by telephone, said about 20,000 displaced people were moving towards the village.

"There is no shelter and we are sleeping in the open. We have nothing to eat because we didn’t bring any food with us and no one here is giving us any," Balengele said.

UNHCR said there were several camps and makeshift sites in the Mugunga area hosting at least 35,000 displaced people. "The number continues to rise daily," the agency said in a statement on 7 September. "The conditions are desperate, with the displaced sheltering in flimsy huts made of leaves and sticks, in overcrowded school buildings and under the open sky."

Due to increasingly difficult and limited access in the region, UNHCR added, there were fears that the known displacement was only the tip of the iceberg. "Yesterday [6 September], we had no access to Mugunga as the security situation there deteriorated rapidly," the agency said. "Over the past days, UNHCR staff in Goma have witnessed the constant arrival of trucks loaded with IDPs [internally displaced persons] and their belongings."

Regional ramifications

In New York, MONUC commander Major-General Babacar Gaye said the conflict could have wider sub-regional implications.

"Nkunda considers himself a spokesman and protector of the Tutsi community, of whom one part are refugees in Rwanda, and the return of these refugees is the first thing he is demanding of the government," he said. The return, he added, must be predicated on a settlement of the situation in northern Kivu.

According to Gaye, the "weakness" of the Congolese state had made it difficult to extend authority to all parts of northern Kivu, leaving Nkunda to progressively fill the void.

MONUC, for its part, had for three months reinforced its North Kivu brigade with an additional battalion while increasing its mobile operations and providing "measured support" to the Congolese army.