The thoughts and prayers of the WATF team are
with the displaced people of the Congo who are
struggling to survive.
We appeal to the United Nations to act before it is
too late.
Lord Malloch-Brown said the UK and other
European powers could not stand back if the
fighting between government and rebel forces
erupted again.
His comments came as Foreign Secretary David
Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard
Kouchner arrived on a joint mission to the region to
try to bring the warring parties together.
"We have certainly got to have it as an option
which is developed and on the table if we need it,"
Lord Malloch-Brown said.
"The first line of call on this should be the
deployment of the UN's own troops from elsewhere
in the country.
"But we have got to have plans. If everything else
fails we cannot stand back and watch violence
erupt."
Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian
catastrophe in the war-torn African nation with
more than 200,000 people forced to flee their
homes.
Mr Miliband said there was an "urgent need" for a
political solution to the tensions.
His visit comes as Congo's President Joseph
Kabila and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame
agreed to attend an emergency summit on the
crisis.
EU development commissioner Louis Michel said
both leaders were sincere about "opting for
dialogue" to help resolve the fighting in the east of
the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Latest reports from the region tell of thousands of
anxious, hungry refugees struggling to get home
amid a fragile ceasefire that was declared on
Thursday and appears to be holding in the city of
Goma.
But aid agencies say the country is on the brink of
a humanitarian catastrophe.
The UN says it has received "disturbing reports
that several camps for internally displaced people,
north of the city of Goma, have been forcibly
emptied, looted and burned."
Many are displaced in Congo
Britain is to provide £5m in extra aid to help those
affected by the crisis.
The money will be on top of the £37m that the UK
provides to the country in financial support every
year.
Mr Miliband, who will also visit neighbouring
Rwanda, said: "The UN Secretary General
reassured me that he and the UN were fully
engaged in efforts to mediate between the parties
to the dispute.
"While we welcome the ceasefire declared on
Thursday night, there is an urgent need to restore
long term stability."
Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has called for the
urgent disarmament of a Rwandan Hutu militia that
he said works with the government, adding his
fighters had retreated seven miles from Goma.
But he has threatened to take the city unless UN
peacekeepers guarantee the ceasefire.
The conflict is fuelled by ethnic hatred left over
from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's civil
wars.
Mr Nkunda claims the Congolese government has
not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu
militia that escaped to Congo after helping
slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis.
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