11:08am UK, Saturday November 01, 2008

Britain may need to send troops to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, a Foreign Office minister has warned.

Thousands forced to flee homes

Lord Malloch-Brown said the UK and other European powers could not stand back if the fighting between government and rebel forces erupted again.

His comments came as Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner were embarking on a joint mission to the region to try to bring the warring parties together.

“We have certainly got to have it as an option which is developed and on the table if we need it,” Lord Malloch-Brown said.

“The first line of call on this should be the deployment of the UN’s own troops from elsewhere in the country.

“But we have got to have plans. If everything else fails we cannot stand back and watch violence erupt.”

Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn African nation with more than 200,000 people forced to flee their homes.

Mr Miliband said there was an “urgent need” for a political solution to the tensions.

His visit comes as Congo’s President Joseph Kabila and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame agreed to attend an emergency summit on the crisis.

EU development commissioner Louis Michel said both leaders were sincere about “opting for dialogue” to help resolve the fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Latest reports from the region tell of thousands of anxious, hungry refugees struggling to get home amid a fragile ceasefire that was declared on Thursday and appears to be holding in the city of Goma.

But aid agencies say the country is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The UN says it has received “disturbing reports that several camps for internally displaced people, north of the city of Goma, have been forcibly emptied, looted and burned.”

Britain is to provide £5m in extra aid to help those affected by the crisis.

The money will be on top of the £37m that the UK provides to the country in financial support every year.

Mr Miliband, who will also visit neighbouring Rwanda, said: “The UN Secretary General reassured me that he and the UN were fully engaged in efforts to mediate between the parties to the dispute.

“While we welcome the ceasefire declared on Thursday night, there is an urgent need to restore long term stability.”

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has called for the urgent disarmament of a Rwandan Hutu militia that he said works with the government, adding his fighters had retreated seven miles from Goma.

But he has threatened to take the city unless UN peacekeepers guarantee the ceasefire.

The conflict is fuelled by ethnic hatred left over from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and Congo’s civil wars.

Mr Nkunda claims the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis.