PARIS, France (Reuters) -- France said on Tuesday it was willing to send a peacekeeping force to the Democratic Republic of Congo as fresh fighting broke out in the volatile eastern town of Bunia.
The United Nations has called for a "coalition of the willing'' to send troops to the troubled Ituri province, where tribal fighting has broken out after Uganda pulled out of the region last week.
"France is willing to contribute to the stabilisation of Ituri and we are currently looking into the practicalities of participating in an ad hoc and temporary international force,'' French Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau told reporters.
France is taking a lead role in drafting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would approve one U.N. member country going to the former Belgium colony to help quell the fighting.
Rival Conglese ethnic groups and Rwanda questioned France's motives for wanting to become involved in a conflict in which more than three million people have died, according to aid agencies, mostly through war-related starvation or disease.
On Tuesday, the rival militias began fighting again in Bunia, in the centre of the Ituri region, after Hema militia drove rival Lendu fighters from the town a day earlier.
"There has been a strong (military) reaction by the UPC who are still in control of the town,'' said U.N. spokeswoman Patricia Tome, referring to a militia of the Hema tribe called the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC).
She said the fighting was one km (less than a mile) from a U.N. building in the centre of town. Earlier she said U.N. troops found two women and a baby hacked to death in Bunia and were probing unconfirmed reports of killings in nearby villages.
"We have got unconfirmed reports of killings going on at the moment in the villages which we have yet to confirm,'' Tome said. "We have many (civilian) casualties (sheltering) with us that need urgent medical attention,'' Tome said.
Tens of thousands of terrified refugees are on the move in jungles littered with landmines and infested by murderous gangs, and calls are growing for the United Nations to act more strongly to prevent a return to the anarchic tribal bloodshed that has killed dozens in Ituri in recent days.
U.N. rapid reaction force
The United Nations has called for a rapid reaction force to help quell the fighting, which a U.N. force of some 4,300 in Congo known as MONUC has been unable to suppress.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said MONUC troops, deployed to monitor and supervise a ceasefire in the wider war in the DRC, were neither trained nor equipped to deal with the kind of violence in Bunia.
But a Hema militia that says it is in control of Bunia expressed opposition to the idea of French intervention.
"I am not happy about them (French) coming in. We know their intentions. Where were they when people were being killed?'' said Thomas Lubanga, leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC).
His comments echoed Rwanda's view of any French peace role.
"It is important for the U.N. to intervene directly and not mandate the French. They have been known for hidden agendas,'' Rwandan security official Emmanuel Ndahiro told Reuters.
Congo's many-sided war began in 1998 when Uganda and Rwanda invaded to back rebels fighting to topple the government in Kinshasa. They later fell out and have backed a series of rival Congolese militias in recent years.
