Nkunda has vowed to fight any foreign forces helping government troops [AFP]

A spokesman for the UN peace mission said on Tuesday that violence against civilians had spread and was continuing.

"Soldiers of the FARDC [Armed Forces of DR Congo] have been engaged since yesterday  evening in looting and acts of brutality against the civilian population in the Kanyabayonga area," 175km north of regional capital Goma," Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said.

The pillaged towns, including Kaina and Kirumba, are strategically located in the north of North Kivu province, where rebels loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda control much of the territory following an offensive launched on August 28.

Reinforcement call

Earlier, Human Rights Watch said the UN should urgently increase the number of peacekeepers in eastern Congo.

T he group said that the Security Council should bolster the 17,000-strong UN force, its largest peacekeeping mission in the world, which is overstretched.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in eastern Congo's provincial capital of Goma as fighting between the rebels and the Congolese army rages.

Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak has been reported in camps housing internally displaced people.

Cholera outbreak

Dr Claire-Lise Chaigot of the World Health Organisation warned that "all the ingredients are there" for a cholera epidemic.

"We have a serious risk of having a big cholera epidemic in this part of the world ... We have a population that is on the move, an unstable security situation  and a population that does not have access to safe water and proper sanitation," she said from Geneva.

Chaigot said that fresh fighting would further hinder efforts to get aid and medical supplies to people already hard to reach.

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