Hutu and Tutsi community leaders in the Nord-Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo called on Sunday for an end to fighting between soldiers and rebels that has displaced 50 000 people.
The joint statement called for both sides to ”take into account the terrible suffering of the population which only wants to live in peace”.
Soldiers and dissident forces alike should ”stop the hostilities … without conditions,” it added.
The local leaders deplored ”the enormous loss of human life, bloodshed, pillaging and violence of all sorts affecting the innocent civilian population”.
The leaders aimed to cross ethnic and political lines by appealing to a ”sense of the general interest” of the whole Nord-Kivu population to find ”a durable and definitive solution” to the conflict.
The Congolese army said 170 people were killed between November 25 and 28 in heavy clashes with rebels loyal to dissident general Laurent Nkunda in Sake, 27km north-west of Goma.
Nkuda did not release casualty information.
United Nations-supported government troops pushed the rebels back from Sake, halting their progression north.
Over 50 000 people have been displaced from the area by the repeated clashes.
Despite a ceasefire in 2003 bringing an end to a bloody five-year conflict drawing in DRC’s neighbours that killed millions of people, the situation in the east of the country has remained highly volatile. – Sapa-AFP