Nkunda has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo army of allying itself on the battlefield with the Hutu militias. The government denies the claims. Critics say Nkunda is a proxy of Rwanda's government and has exaggerated claims there is a serious threat to Tutsis in Congo. Nkunda's army has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including rape campaigns and attacks on villages - as have army soldiers and militias.  It appears that both sides of the war are committing atrocities against their own society in an all out grasp for control of the riches that fill the region.

Why has violence escalated in recent months? Nkunda's forces signed a Jan. 23, 2008 peace deal, but the dislike and trust of the two sides run deep because of the atrocities. The agreement call for all armed groups in the region to an immediate cease-fire, followed by the pullback of fighters from key areas that would then become a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone. The rebels have since accused the Congolese army of abandoning positions to Hutu militias that have in their eyes been the culprit of the violent acts against the people in the region. Caught in the middle, villagers have risked and lost their lives trying to escape the bloodshed.

In recent days the following reports have come out of the Congo.

Nov. 14, 2008  Husbands and Children Killed as Women Suffer Rape (excerpt from Times Online UK).   The first soldiers kicked down the door to her house, killed her younger brother, his wife and son. Then, as Ngiraganga fled barefoot towards safety, she came across the second wave of soldiers. They asked her for money and when she explained that she had nothing to give they took her clothes, stripping the 42-year-old to her underwear.  The third group of soldiers took all she had left. “They beat me and raped me,” Ngiraganga said quietly in Swahili, sitting in the gloomy office of a women’s shelter.  Ngiraganga was forced from her home in Rutshuru, 40 miles (65km) north of Goma, two weeks ago. With rebels closing in rapidly on the town, government soldiers began withdrawing.  She said that they went from door to door, killing husbands and fathers then raping the women. Ngiraganga survived by hiding in the bush for two days before walking for four more. She was naked and barefoot. “I was tired and there seemed no way to keep going. My back and belly were sore and my head was hurting from where the soldiers beat me,” she said.  Exhausted and dressed in a few simple clothes she had found at the roadside, Ngiraganga reached the relative safety of Goma last week. Now she sleeps on the floor of a school and prays for the safety of the two sons and a daughter left behind in Rutshuru.  The tragedy described by the Times (UK) is the fate of the people of the Congo.  They are losing their identity and becoming object to either destroy or to use and throw away.  Once must wonder where the world moral compass is at as limited resources are being used to stop the conflict.  It is another genocide in Africa.  It appears that genocide is not acceptable unless it is in Africa.

Nov. 11,2008  UN says Congolese troops raped, pillaged villages.  Hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in eastern Congo, raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance, the U.N. reported.  .N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said the army troops had reportedly raped civilians near the town of Kanyabayonga in violent attacks that began overnight that lasted into Tuesday morning.  Kanyabayonga is 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the provincial capital, Goma.  Dietrich said 700 to 800 Congolese soldiers then fled Kanyabayonga and went on a rampage through several villages to the north.  "They looted vehicles, they looted some houses," Dietrich said by telephone from Kinshasa, the national capital.  A rare nighttime gunbattle erupted late Tuesday between rebels and the army just north of Goma, and the U.N. said it was trying to get the warring sides to move further apart. Mortars were also used during the nearly one-hour fight near Kibati, Dietrich said.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire so aid workers could urgently help "at least 100,000 refugees" cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma.  "Because of the ongoing fighting, these people have received virtually no assistance. Their situation has grown increasingly desperate," Ban said.  The U.N. chief also said he was "very concerned by reports of targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape."  Ban said about 3,000 more U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and police were urgently needed to bolster the 17,000-strong U.N. force in Congo that has been unable to stop the fighting or halt the rebel advance.  The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to take up Ban's request.  A rebel spokesman said any aid workers who wanted to help civilians trapped on rebel-held territory would be safe.

"If there are NGOs who want to come to Rutshuru, they are welcome to come," rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said.  Congo's armed forces are notoriously ill-disciplined soldiers, historically better at looting than standing their ground. In recent days, some have been seen manning checkpoints drunk

Nov 10. 2008  GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo | It’s said that 5 million people have died due to conflict in Congo during the past decade. If that beggars belief, consider the family of 18-year-old Florence Nirere.  Sixteen months ago in Nirere’s village in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rebel fighters clashed with government troops and sent civilians fleeing. A Congolese soldier shot her cousin — a pretty 25-year-old named Nirabundu — in the head because she didn’t run from the battlefield fast enough, Nirere said.  Now the family lives in a camp for eastern Congo’s growing legion of displaced people, a sprawling collection of canvas-covered shacks where hunger and disease are the worst killers.  This month, Nirere helped bury an older sister who fell ill from malnutrition. Two days later, her 6-year-old, diarrhea-stricken brother, Habi, lay in a cot in the local clinic, his toothpick arms pierced by tubes pumping nutrients into his motionless body.  “We are dying,” Nirere, who has close-cropped hair and stoic, wide-set eyes, said simply.

Nov 8, 2008 Rebel forces are poised to overrun the provincial capital of Goma. Tens of thousands of terrified residents – 60 per cent children – are pouring out of the city, caught between the invading forces and the Congolese army. Emergency workers are struggling to get food to the refugees. There are reports of rape, looting and killing. UN peacekeepers seem helpless.

Nov 6, 2008  Congolese Tutsi rebels went from door to door overnight killing people in Kiwanja, residents said Thursday. Rebel commanders said they had assaulted only pro-government fighters. “They knocked on the doors; when the people opened, they killed them,” said Simo Bramporiki, who said his wife and child were killed. Human Rights Watch said at least 20 people died in the battle for the town.

Nov 1, 2008  They lay strewn across the road, their dried blood soaked into the red clay dust of the African soil. All of them were soldiers, some government, some rebel. One of the dead men lay on his back, inexplicably clutching a plastic jerry can to his chest. Another man, his mouth wide open as if in a contorted, grotesque grin, had lost his left hand; the limb perhaps hacked off or eaten by animals from the bush.  Yet another of the dead soldiers lay huddled in a ditch, almost as if he had lain down in the sweltering Congolese heat for a nap from which he would never wake up.  The road from Goma to Kibumba is a little over 10 miles long, but it is littered with the debris, death and suffering of the most recent blood bath to have gripped eastern Congo.

Oct 31,2008  Fears are growing for the welfare of 39 wildlife rangers who were reportedly forced to flee into dense forest after their headquarters in eastern DR Congo were stormed by rebels on Sunday.  The rangers, who protect some of the world's last mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in North Kivu province, are reported to have no food, water or shelter. "Virunga is in an unprecedented crisis," said Dr Emmanuel de Merode, provincial director of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN).  "The fighting continues to spread in all directions, the rangers have lost control of the southern sector of the park... We urgently need support to protect the rangers and their families.