UNITED NATIONS | U.N. peacekeepers are spread too thinly through eastern Congo to protect civilians or quell the fighting between rebel and government forces, U.N. officials warned Thursday.
The assessment came while thousands of Congolese took advantage of a fragile day-old cease-fire to flee the regional capital of Goma in eastern Congo.

KILIMANYOKA, Congo – The Congolese army said troops from Rwanda have crossed the nearby border and attacked its soldiers Wednesday in support of a minority Tutsi rebellion, as thousands of refugees cowered from the shelling just a few miles down the road.
The military spokesman for Rwanda’s Tutsi-led government immediately denied the Congolese allegations.
A helicopter gunship from the United Nations mission flew high in the sky toward the battlefield and Uruguayan peacekeepers deployed on a hilltop ridge.

A UN spokeswoman has said peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have used helicopter gunships to attack fighters trying to take a village north of Goma.
Sylvie van den Wildenberg said on Monday that the troops had fired at rebel forces advancing on Kibumba – about 45km north of Goma.
The UN has maintained a 17,000-strong force – the largest in its peacekeeping operations – in Africa’s largest and mineral-rich country since armed conflict there started in 1998.

More than 30 months after the history-making arrest of Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo – the first suspect to be sent to The Hague in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the newly-established International Criminal Court (ICC) – a question mark still hangs over whether he will ever face trial.
In July the ICC’s Trial Chamber ordered him released from custody. This week the court’s Appeals Chamber overturned that decision. What has gone wrong and what happens next? In this question-and-answer feature, the International Center for Transitional …

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council will likely authorize deployment of some special forces and new military hardware to help U.N. troops better protect civilians from increasing violence in Congo, diplomats said.
Earlier this month Alan Doss, head of the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), asked the Security Council for more troops, including forces with special skills and training, as well as drones and other military hardware that can improve MONUC’s intelligence gathering capabilities.