U.N. relief finally reaches Congo refugees

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- The first truckloads of food aid for starving Democratic Republic of Congo refugees have reached camps in the country's war-torn northeast, officials say.

After weeks of fighting, U.N. aid workers were finally able to negotiate their way through battle lines to deliver maize and lentils to some of the estimated 50,000 hungry civilians in Rutshuru territory, about 40 miles north of the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma, the BBC reported Saturday.

U.N. officials estimate that 250,000 people have fled violence that began in August between Conglese government troops and Tutsi rebel forces commanded by Gen. Laurent Nkunda.

U.N. special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, was conducting diplomacy in Congo, the BBC reported, meeting Friday with Congolese President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa and saying he hopes to meet with Nkunda.

Kabila and the government of Rwanda announced Friday they have agreed to work together to deal with violence along their common border, which has roots in unresolved conflicts from the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsis by rival Hutu forces.