United Nations peacekeepers in helicopters and armoured troop carriers headed for the frontline in eastern Congo on Tuesday to stop renegade soldiers advancing further after more than a week of fighting. The UN mission in Democratic Republic of Congo said it was setting up a temporary buffer zone between the towns of Kanyabayonga and Lubero to keep rebels and troops loyal to the government apart.
Accused in the past of being too passive when violence has flared in the vast central African nation, the UN mission stressed it was serious this time. Any unauthorised attempt to breach the divide would be pushed back, it said in a statement.
"The helicopters are in the air and they have orders to shoot at any of the insurgents that move towards Lubero," a senior UN official in Congo told Reuters.
The violence along Congo's jungle border with Rwanda has raised fears of a return to war in Africa's Great Lakes region, where conflict and related hunger and disease have killed at least four million people over the past decade.
Congo's transitional government and its new national army, made up of former belligerents from a five-year civil war, have been struggling to maintain order in the east, prized for its mineral riches including gold and diamonds.
A company of South African peacekeepers, expected to number around 100 men, would be deployed in Kanyabayonga, a farming town which was the scene of several clashes over the past week, while a second company would move towards Lubero, around 70 km (45 miles) to the north, another UN official said.
The buffer zone is also meant to allow aid to reach displaced civilians. As many as 200,000 people may have been uprooted between Kanyabayonga and Lubero since hostilities broke out, although some have begun returning home, the UN has said.
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