Nairobi/Goma - Thousands of civilians have been forced out of a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after fighting between rebels and a pro-government militia, which came despite a ceasefire.

The UN said that rebel general Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) clashed Tuesday and Wednesday with the pro-government Mai-Mai militia.

The CNDP then forced thousands of civilians out of Kiwanja, northeastern DR Congo under the pretext of searching for remaining militia, a BBC correspondent in the town said.

Aid agencies say that renewed fighting between the CNDP and government forces has displaced at least 250,000 people since late August.

Johannesburg - Leaders from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are to meet in South Africa on Sunday for talks on the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, South African officials said Wednesday.

South Africa's Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the extraordinary summit of the 15-member regional grouping would hear the latest on negotiations for political power-sharing in Zimbabwe. South African President Kgalema Motlanthe is to chair the gathering.

Nairobi - A regional summit on the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to take place in Nairobi Friday, a Kenyan foreign ministry official said Wednesday, as renewed fighting continued for a second day.

"There will be a summit on Friday," Patrick Wamoto, head of the Kenyan Foreign Ministry's African and African Union Directorate, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "The agenda is DR Congo."

Nairobi  - A regional summit on the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to take place in Nairobi Friday, a Kenyan foreign ministry official said Wednesday as small-scale fighting between rebels and pro-government militia continued for a second day.

"There will be a summit on Friday," Patrick Wamoto, Head of the Kenyan Foreign Ministry's African and African Union Directorate, told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa. "The agenda is DR Congo."

New York - The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet over the possibility of having a larger peacekeeping force in Democratic Republic of Congo at the end of November despite the current tense situation in the country.

Nairobi, Goma  - It is a story that is as old as it is depressing: a rebel group more concerned with filling its pockets than the welfare of the people it says it is defending.

The rumbling conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which blew up into full-scale fighting for four days last week, conforms to this pattern.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, who last week routed the Congolese army and sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing in terror, says he is fighting to defend Tutsis from armed Hutu militia.

These Hutu militia fled to Congo after the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, when Hutu militants killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.