KIBATI, Congo - A rebel ceasefire has allowed a UN aid convoy to make its first delivery of humanitarian aid in eastern Congo since fighting broke out in August.
UN officials say the 12-vehicle convoy rumbled past rebel lines Monday carrying medical supplies for clinics that were looted by retreating Congolese government troops.
UN peacekeepers escorted the trucks north from the provincial capital of Goma to Rutshuru, a village some 90 kilometres north of Goma.
Gloria Fernandez, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in eastern Congo, says both the Congolese army and the rebels gave assurances of safe passage.
Fernandez says medical supplies and tablets to purify water were the priority.
She adds that another convoy on Tuesday will be delivering food for some of the 250,000 refugees displaced by fighting in the central African country.
She said health clinics north of Goma have been "looted and completely destroyed," leaving the Rutshuru hospital as the only operating medical facility in a region of hundreds of thousands of people.
Food, however, was the critical issue for most people.
"Everybody is hungry, everybody," said Jean Bizy, 25, a teacher, who watched with envy as the UN convoy stopped to deliver a sack of potatoes to UN troops in Rugari. Bizy said he has been surviving on wild bananas for days.
Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda went on the offensive Aug. 28 and brought his fighters to the edge of Goma last week before declaring a unilateral ceasefire.
The conflict is fuelled by festering ethnic hatred left over from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's civil wars from 1996-2002.
Nkunda claims the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter a half-million Rwandan Tutsis.
All sides are believed to fund fighters by illegally mining Congo's vast mineral riches, giving them no financial interest in stopping the fighting.
Tens of thousands of refugees in Kibati, between Goma and Rutshuru, have received little food aid since they fled their homes a week ago. Fernandez said families here have been forced to move four or five times in the past 10 days.
"They go around in circles ... fleeing the movement of troops and the lines of combat," she said.
Since Thursday, streams of refugees have thronged the roads around Goma trying to get home, lugging babies and bundles of belongings, guiding children, pigs and goats.
To ease food shortages, rebels on Monday allowed farmers to reach Goma in trucks packed with cabbages, onions and spinach.
