UN Aid Convoy Leaves for Congo War Zone

A UN aid convoy set off today to provide relief supplies to tens of thousands of people displaced by fighting in eastern Congo.

The 12-vehicle convoy left the provincial capital Goma bound for territory controlled by rebels led by Laurent Nkunda - the first mission of its kind since the violence started in August.

It set off as the foreign secretary David Miliband refused to rule out sending British troops to the conflict to help UN peace keepers.

"We have not ruled anything out. It is possible," he told BBC Radio 4's Today program following a two-days of talks in the region.

He added: "It is right to see this through the UN perspective."

He said the short term priority was to secure aid supplies from being plundered by rebel groups.

"Those rebel groups need to be engaged in a serious way in both military terms, but also in political terms. That is the foundation of progress in the DRC."

Both the Congolese army and Nkunda have said today's aid convoy would be given a safe passage, according to Gloria Fernandez, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in eastern Congo.

She said medical supplies and tablets to purify water were the priority, and that the convoy was not carrying food though it is desperately needed.

Peter Smerdon, of the World Food Programme, said. "We have sufficient food stocks in Goma for an initial response to the displacement, but it's a matter of getting it to the people in need."

Some 250,000 people have been displaced since August, Fernandez said.

She 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."

The aid convoy is bound for a hospital in the village of Rutshuru - the only operating medical facility in a region of hundreds of thousands of people.

Miliband will join fellow EU ministers for talks in the French port city of Marseilles today amid calls from Oxfam for them to agree to send EU forces to the area.

"The European Union is well placed to rapidly provide the additional troops that the people of Congo desperately need," said Juliette Prodhan, the head of Oxfam in Congo.

"Given the fragility of the ceasefire and fears for another outbreak of intense fighting around Goma, more troops must be deployed as soon as possible."

Last night, the outline of a desperately needed peace was emerging after Britain and France warned the leaders of Congo and Rwanda that they could be held to account by the rest of the world if the violence continued.

Before arriving in Tanzania, Miliband and Kouchner delivered tough messages to the leaders of Rwanda and Congo, saying Europe would not stand by and watch another cycle of the conflict that has its origins in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and that has since claimed 5 million lives and created more than 1 million refugees.

"Our message was that the world is watching," Miliband said last night. "Everyone is haunted by the memories of the 1990s. All sides have to live up to their stated responsibilities.

"It is vital we maintain the ceasefire and get a humanitarian corridor open."

Another British official expressed the message more bluntly: "They were warned: 'You need to call off the dogs. You will be held to account if bad things happen.'"

The process will involve Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, the current head of the African Union, hosting a delegation from Rwanda today and a Congolese government delegation tomorrow. That would be followed in the next few days by face-to-face peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with AU and European Union participation.

Gordon Brown told reporters during a tour of Gulf states: "We must not allow Congo to become another Rwanda."

Miliband said he would tell his fellow European ministers: "The situation is very dangerous. The ceasefire is fragile. The humanitarian situation, especially as you go north from Goma, could easily take a fast turn for the worse, because the basics are not yet there for hundreds of thousands of people."

The vigorous EU diplomatic push came after 10,000 rebels led Nkunda, a Tutsi, went on the offensive in North Kivu province, displacing tens of thousands of people who had been repeatedly uprooted by earlier cycles of the conflict. Nkunda, who is thought to be supported by Rwanda, claims to be protecting Tutsis from Hutu extremists, whose presence dates from the Rwandan genocide, when they were driven into Congo accused of killing 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

Yesterday, thousands of refugees were on the move again after rebel pledges that they would be safe. From dawn, the road out from the town of Goma, the regional capital, was lined with families trudging north towards Kibumba, where many of them had been staying in a displaced persons' camp until a few days ago.