Heavy fighting in Kisangani

Heavy fighting continued in rebel-held Kisangani for a third day on Monday, apparently between Rwandan and Ugandan forces backing different factions of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), news agencies and residents said. They said the clashes began at Kisangani's main airport on Saturday and later turned into fierce street battles within the city. Residents contacted by IRIN said the fighting in the city had intensified on Monday morning. Women and children stranded in vaccination centres People in Kisangani remained holed up in homes, offices, markets or wherever they were when the fighting spread into the city on Sunday afternoon, residents said on Monday. "Hundreds" of women and children were still stranded in health centres and other sites where they had gone to receive polio immunisations as part of the three-day national vaccination campaign that started on Friday, one resident told IRIN. Water and electricity supplies had been cut on Sunday, but had resumed on Monday in some parts of the city. Several civilians had been injured or wounded but casualty figures were not yet available, the sources said. Origin of clash disputed The Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Monday that the clashes started when about 400 Ugandan soldiers were flown to Kisangani and ordered to encircle Rwandan positions at the airport, some 17 km outside the city. "It became inevitable to respond to this attack which was aimed at driving us out of the airport normally shared by our two armies," a Rwandan senior army officer told RNA. Meanwhile, the Uganda-backed RCD-Kisangani faction said in a statement received by IRIN on Monday that the clashes started when Rwandan soldiers fired gunshots at a Ugandan army convoy "to provoke a direct confrontation in an effort to establish a position" between Ugandan headquarters and the main airport. An estimated 4,500 Rwandan reinforcements had been flown into Kisangani since last Wednesday as part of Rwandan preparations for "an offensive to capture and occupy the city of Kisangani against the will of the population," the statement added. Ugandan and Rwandan leaders meet to resolve conflict Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's Vice-President Paul Kagame were due to meet on Monday at a lodge in Queen Elizabeth National Park, southwestern Uganda, in a bid to find a solution to the conflict between their troops in Kisangani. "The leaders and top government officials are meeting from this afternoon but I don't have the agenda of their meeting. The duration of the meeting is also not known yet," Ugandan Presidential Press Secretary Hope Kivengere told IRIN on Monday Rwandan radio reported on Monday that Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu would also be attending the meeting. Disruption of vaccination effort "crime against humanity" Meanwhile, DRC Health Minister Mashako Mamba has accused Rwanda and Uganda of committing a "crime against humanity" because the power cut resulting from the clashes in Kisangani had led to the "spoiling of three million doses of vaccines" against polio, measles and other fatal but vaccine-preventable childhood diseases. "By cutting power, the aggressors have thus shortened the lives of these children," Mashako told state television on Sunday. Humanitarian sources told IRIN on Monday that vaccines stored in a cold room in Kisangani might have been affected by the power cut, but it was still not known whether back-up power systems had been activated to prevent the vaccines from being ruined.