Clashes in Masisi region of North Kivu province force nearly 5,000 to flee to other parts of DRC and across border

Nearly 5,000 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been displaced because of fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province, according to the UN's refugee agency.

Clashes between Congo's army and former rebels who joined the army but then left have continued for days in the Masisi region.

The provincial governor, Julien Paluku Kahongya, said: "We confirm that our military continues to pursue armed military dissidents in the Masisi territory, and several villages have been reclaimed. We want to assure our population that soon everything will return to normal."

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said it had counted at least 2,725 internally displaced Congolese and more than 2,092 refugees who fled the fighting for Rwanda in two days.

"These people are mostly children, women and the elderly," said the UNHCR deputy spokesman, Simon Lubuku. "Refugees crossed the border of Rwanda to Nkamira, where UNHCR is distributing non-food necessities such as blankets."

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha) said those who had been internally displaced had gathered around Goma, mostly in the towns of Mugunga and Keshero. Those in Mugunga were being put up in the classrooms of a school in a church compound, it said.

Many of the officers who defected from the army in April used to be part of the Tutsi-led CNDP rebel movement that swept across large swaths of eastern Congo at the end of 2008 until a peace agreement was signed in January 2009. The rebels were speedily integrated into the national army that became a conglomeration of numerous rebel groups and militias along with mutinous soldiers.

The mutinous soldiers are also loyal to the former warlord Bosco Ntaganda, who has been serving in the country's army despite an international indictment on war crimes charges. Ntaganda denied any involvement in the new mutiny.

"I am not involved in what happens here [Masisi], I am an officer in the army of the DRC and I obey the orders of my superiors," Ntaganda said. "My problem is between me and my superiors that I have promised to solve it."

Early last month Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, called for Ntaganda's arrest and said he should face a military tribunal in Congo. He said the military did not need to hand Ntaganda over to the international criminal court.

Ntaganda is accused of using child soldiers for fighting in north-eastern Congo from 2002 to 2003. He was first indicted on war crimes charges in 2006. In the past Kabila had refused calls to hand over Ntaganda, arguing that his co-operation was essential to keeping the peace in the troubled east of the country, where numerous local militias and foreign rebels operate.