A UN special envoy was in eastern Congo yesterday in a renewed effort to broker peace with Tutsi rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda as peacekeepers said his fighters continued to break a shaky ceasefire there.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was due to meet Nkunda in the rebel commander's native village, Jomba, the UN said, the day after meeting Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Obasanjo is on his second mission in two weeks aimed at ending fighting in Congo's war-ravaged North Kivu province.
A ceasefire declared by Nkunda has halted battles with government troops and brought nearly two weeks of relative calm, but his men have continued attacking Congolese and Rwandan militia allies of the government, sending thousands of refugees fleeing east into Uganda.
The rebels seized the border town of Ishasha on Thursday, and Congo's UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC, said fresh clashes between Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and armed groups erupted near the town of Masisi yesterday.
"We're hoping for some real consolidation of the ceasefire on the part of the CNDP, and a stop to the fighting and the progression of CNDP troops," MONUC's spokeswoman in North Kivu, Sylvie van den Wildenberg, told Reuters.
Some 250,000 civilians have fled fighting in eastern Congo since Nkunda launched an offensive in late August that brought his troops to within 10 km of the provincial capital, Goma, routing the army and throwing MONUC into disarray.
Obasanjo, who met both Nkunda and Kabila almost two weeks ago, recently pressed for direct talks between the two to end the violence, a move viewed by many observers as ceding to one of the rebels' key demands.
Government ministers last week again rejected the possibility of direct negotiations with Nkunda, and the warring sides seemed far apart on how to end their festering conflict.
Former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who is accompanying Obasanjo on behalf of leaders in Africa's Great Lakes region, played down the prospect of direct talks after meeting Kabila on Friday, saying they would be "imprudent".
Statements from both sides have dampened prospects of face-to-face talks between Nkunda and Kabila.