About 800 UN peacekeepers ares tasked with protecting residents of Goma [EPA]

Troops loyal to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade army general, were on the outskirts of the provinvial capital of Nord-Kivu province on Thursday after government resistance appeared to have crumbled.

A statement signed by Nkunda said that the intention of his National Congress for the Defence of the People (NCDP) was "not to panic the population of Goma as well as those who are in displaced persons camps in the immediate environs of the city".

UN peacekeepers

An AFP news agency correspondent in Goma said on Wednesday that government forces had fled, relocating their tanks to the south on the road to Bukavu, in Sud-Kivu province.

UN tanks had been drawn into position around the peacekeeping force's headquarters near the airport to the north of Goma. Madnodje Mounoubai, a UN spokesman, said that peacekeepers were also deployed at other strategic points.

Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping operations, said an estimated 800 troops from the UN mission in DRC (Monuc) were currently patrolling Goma.

"We are trying to bring additional troops to protect the civilians in Goma in the coming three to seven days," he said. The reinforcements would be sent from other parts of DR Congo where Monuc has about 17,000 troops.

Julien Mpaluku, the governor of Goma, said that the UN remained in control of the city but "people are stampeding and panicking.

People carrying whatever they could carry streamed out of Goma on Wednesday, while another 45,000 refugees fled a makeshift camp in the nearby village of Kibati.

The camp, just north of Goma, had seen an influx of 30,000 people over the past three days joining the 15,000 already there, after the NCDP launched a major offensive in the North Kivu region.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has warned that the conflict "is creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions, and threatens dire consequences on a regional scale".

US officials were among those who pulled out of the city and the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs was expected to arrive in DR Congo's capital on Thursday.

International pressure

Before departing for Kinshasa, Jendayi Frazer urged Nkunda's forces to comply with previous agreements aimed at ending the conflict in the east of the country.

"I should say, they should not go into Goma, they will be held accountable for actions taking place," Frazer said in Nairobi.

Jean-Maurice Ripert, France's ambassador to the United Nations, said that he hoped that "Nkunda will announce that he stops his offensive" after declaring the ceasefire.

He also said he was planning to send a high-level envoy soon to support an initiative by Ban to facilitate dialogue between Rwanda and Congo.

Ban has reportedly been "alarmed" by reports that Rwandan soldiers were involved in the fighting against Congolese government forces, while the UN Security Council expressed concern at "reports of heavy weapons fire across the Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda border".

The Kinshasa government accuses neighbouring Rwanda of supporting Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi. Kigali has denied the charges.

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