Nairobi/Kinshasa - Around 30,000 people fleeing battles between United Nations-backed Congolese troops and Tutsi rebels are pouring into refugee camps near the eastern city of Goma, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday as fierce fighting continued.

UN helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles have been supporting Congolese troops north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, as renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's troops drive for the town.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) says it has driven the Congolese army back from the town of Kibumba, which lies about 20 kilometres north of Goma.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - Around 30,000 people fleeing fierce battles between Congolese troops and Tutsi rebels are pouring into refugee camps near the eastern city of Goma, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday, as the rebels appeared to push back government forces.

UN helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles have been supporting Congolese troops north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, as renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's troops press toward the town.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) says it has driven the Congolese army back from the town of Kibumba, which lies about 20 kilometres north of Goma.

Nairobi/Djibouti - A ceasefire agreement between the Somali government and parts of the Islamist opposition is set to take effect on November 5, after the warring parties reached an agreement Sunday evening in Djibouti.

Nairobi- Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga, in a show of support for US presidential candidate Barack Obama, paid a surprise visit to Obama's relatives in the east African country, reports said Monday.

Odinga met with the 86-year-old Sarah Obama, the Democratic candidate's step-grandmother, and other members of his family in the tiny village of Kogelo in western Kenya, according to Kenya's The Standard newspaper.

Nairobi - Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan has backed calls for an international tribunal to try people accused of involvement in Kenya's post-election violence.

A commission led by Justice Philip Waki last week said that prominent politicians and businessmen helped organize ethnically based violence.

He gave an envelope containing the names of the accused to Annan, who said he would hand it over to the authorities at the appropriate time.

"I think it is important that the government acts on it," Annan told the BBC. "The victims demand justice too."

Nairobi/Khartoum  - Sudan has summoned the ambassadors of Kenya and Ethiopia to register a complaint about "illegal" arms shipments to the semi-autonomous south, the Sudanese embassy in Kenya said Tuesday.

Sudan is angry about a shipment of tanks and other military equipment that was allegedly en route to South Sudan through the Kenyan port of Mombasa before being seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Khartoum also said that weapons arrived in South Sudan's capital Juba on Friday aboard an Ethiopian military plane.