Villagers sleep in jungle to avoid Congo fighting

By Marlene Rabaud

KARUBA, Congo (Reuters) - Forced to sleep in the jungle for fear of being attacked in their homes at night, the residents of this east Congo village are crying out for peace.

Government soldiers forced fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda out of Karuba and two nearby villages this week but only pushed them back to Mushake, 15 km (9 miles) away, meaning the front line is still dangerously close.

"We've been sleeping in the bush at night for a month now. We return to the village by day to see the situation. We've nothing to eat, no clothes," said Karuba resident Jerome Lali.

The village of shacks nestles in the hills of North Kivu, a thickly-forested province on Democratic Republic of Congo's border with Uganda and Rwanda, long a crucible of violence.

Nkunda, an ethic Tutsi, says President Joseph Kabila's government and armed forces are supporting Rwandan Hutu rebels, accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Nkunda's men, who say they are defending the interests of Congolese Tutsis in ethnically mixed North Kivu, have been battling government forces on and off since August, when they walked out of a peace deal agreed at the start of the year.

The government has set an October 15 deadline for Nkunda to disband his rebel forces and send his fighters for integration into army brigades that would be stationed outside North Kivu.

Nkunda said this week he was ready to integrate his men. But fighting was still raging on Thursday near Mushake -- around 40 km (25 miles) west of the provincial capital, Goma -- and government forces have beefed up their presence there.