Two European ministers promised help to refugees who have fled fighting in east Congo, but played down the idea of the EU sending troops there to protect civilians.
People driven from their homes mobbed French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his British counterpart David Miliband at a camp in DR Congo's North Kivu province, where a recent rebel offensive triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The ministers were on a mission to gauge what aid the EU could give to DR Congo's government. The visit comes amid a week of fighting that has seen UN peacekeepers and foreign aid workers struggle to help tens of thousands of refugees.
France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, this week proposed the idea of the bloc sending up to 1,500 troops to DRCongo to support the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission there and to help deliver increased humanitarian assistance.
But while Mr Kouchner and Mr Miliband both said a humanitarian operation was on the cards, they indicated the option of an EU military deployment, which has encountered resistance from some European member states, was only being studied.
‘I don't think we're here to discuss an EU force. We're here to discuss the humanitarian situation,’ Mr Miliband said at Kibati, 20km north of North Kivu provincial capital Goma.
Mr Miliband and Mr Kouchner, who earlier met Congolese President Joseph Kabila, travelled on to neighbouring Rwanda to lobby President Paul Kagame's government to support a lasting peace deal in North Kivu.
DR Congo and Rwanda have accused each other of backing rival rebel groups.
An estimated one million people have been forced from their homes in North Kivu by two years of violence.
