The European Union rushed more peacekeepers to Congo on Tuesday as U.N. officials said they had brokered a truce to end days of battles between President Joseph Kabila's soldiers and fighters loyal to his election rival, Reuters reported. Rocket and small arms fire shook the riverside city for a third day after Sunday's announcement that Democratic Republic of Congo's July 30 polls were inconclusive and Kabila would face a run-off vote against a vice president, Jean-Pierre Bemba. As EU reinforcements flew in, U.N. officials said they had secured a truce between Kabila's presidential guard and soldiers loyal to Bemba, a former rebel chief popular in Kinshasa. "They have both agreed to retreat to original positions and then continue talks. We are waiting to see if they take it seriously or not," one U.N. source said after the world body hosted a meeting between the rivals' armed followers. U.N. peacekeepers were mounting joint patrols with the presidential guard and Bemba's followers, telling soldiers from all sides to return home, a separate U.N. military source said. A previous ceasefire on Monday appeared to have been ignored. Ghanaian and Uruguayan U.N. peacekeepers sealed off the sprawling city's main boulevard, allowing only diplomatic and military vehicles through. Three bodies in police uniforms lay on one junction, where spent bullet casings littered the ground. Since the Oct. 29 run-off was announced, members of Kabila's presidential guard have repeatedly clashed with soldiers loyal to Bemba. Both sides blamed the other for starting the fighting, which has killed at least five people and wounded many more. The European Union's rapid reaction force for Congo brought in around 200 more German and Dutch soldiers from nearby Gabon after flying in three helicopters and about 60 French, Portuguese and Swedish special forces troops overnight. They joined around 1,000 EU troops and more than 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers who had protected last month's elections, the first free polls to be held in more than four decades in the vast, war-scarred former Belgian colony. Several dozen civilians with mattresses and bags on their heads scurried past bodies in the street and groups of peacekeepers to leave the plush Gombe district where gunbattles had broken out, mostly around Bemba's riverside home. "There was a battle here today. I am leaving and taking my children because we're scared," said one man, without stopping to give his name as sporadic bursts of gunfire continued. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana telephoned Kabila and Bemba on Tuesday, asking them to show restraint, while German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose troops lead the EU force, urged them to respect democratic principles. The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, William Swing, earlier called for an immediate ceasefire before he and foreign ambassadors met Kabila. They had met Bemba on Monday at his house, where they became trapped by the fighting and had to be rescued by Uruguayan and Spanish peacekeepers. South African President Thabo Mbeki was also involved in efforts to pacify the situation, a South African official said. Diplomats said they had heard reports of looting in some neighbourhoods, while one resident in an outlying suburb said civilians had taken up arms. "The situation is very tense," the deputy EU force commander, Admiral Henning Bess, told Reuters by telephone. Kabila, who assumed the presidency when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001, gained 44.81 percent in the July 30 poll, under the more than 50 percent needed to win outright. Bemba came second with 20.03 percent. The elections were meant to draw a line under a decade of conflict in the former Zaire, where a 1998-2003 war sparked a humanitarian crisis that killed more than 4 million people. But they have underlined deep political and ethnic divisions.
