Nairobi/Goma - Panicked government troops in full retreat have been looting and may also have abused civilians in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said Tuesday.

"Since last evening, during a withdrawal from the Kanyabayonga area (175 kilometres north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma) the soldiers have been looting," Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Nairobi /Goma - A fragile ceasefire in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has broken down as rebels who last week launched a major offensive once more battled the Congolese army, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the African nation said Thursday.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) called a ceasefire last Wednesday after its four-day offensive took it to the edge of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Nairobi, Goma  - A United Nations aid convoy taking supplies behind rebel lines in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not enough to meet the needs of desperate refugees, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced after rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's forces routed the Congolese army and came within reach of taking the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week.

Nairobi, Goma  - It is a story that is as old as it is depressing: a rebel group more concerned with filling its pockets than the welfare of the people it says it is defending.

The rumbling conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which blew up into full-scale fighting for four days last week, conforms to this pattern.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, who last week routed the Congolese army and sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing in terror, says he is fighting to defend Tutsis from armed Hutu militia.

These Hutu militia fled to Congo after the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, when Hutu militants killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.

Nairobi/Goma - A United Nations aid convoy aimed at providing urgent supplies to tens of thousands of refugees displaced by fierce fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo was set to depart Monday morning, an aid official said.

The convoy is to be the first aid for people trapped behind rebel lines since Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's forces last Sunday began a four-day advance on the city of Goma, capital of the eastern North Kivu province.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) last Wednesday called a ceasefire, which has held so far, and has promised to open an aid corridor.

Nairobi/Goma (Congo) - UN children's fund UNICEF sees life and health of children in Congo's Nord-Kivu region increasingly threatened by enduring fighting.

"This fighting is again having a brutal impact on the children and women of the Kivus," said Julien Harneis who heads the UNICEF operation in eastern Congo.

"Many children are split up from their families as they flee; in refugee camps they are even more vulnerable to malaria, measles, cholera and malnutrition," he added.

Last week's fighting had put all they had so far achieved in their battle against hunger and malnutrition at risk, Harneis said.