Doctors struggled yesterday to contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo's eastern provincial capital of Goma, as new fighting ignited fears that infected patients could scatter and launch an epidemic.At the Kibati camp and in Goma, thousands packed church services Sunday to pray for peace after rebels and pro-government militiamen executed civilians in two waves of terror that the top UN envoy to Congo has called war crimes.
The killings highlighted the inability of UN peacekeepers to protect civilians or halt a 10-week-old rebel offensive that has convulsed eastern Congo and forced more than 250,000 people from their homes.
The fighting in Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of 500,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda claims to be fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu rebels who participated in the genocide and then fled to Congo. He wants direct talks with President Joseph Kabila's government to end the fighting, and a rebel-declared cease-fire around Goma has mostly held.