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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A new U.N. report says the number of refugees fleeing the war in Congo swelled by more than 350,000 in just the past few months as fighting escalated, pushing the number of people uprooted in the long-running conflict to 3 million.
The Congo conflict is a spillover from the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Hundreds of Hutus who participated in the mass slaughter escaped into Congo and still fight there. Fighting has continued over two decades.
The report to the Security Council released Monday said that as of the end of August, about 440,000 Congolese had become refugees in neighboring Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. A report three months ago put that number at 70,000.
An estimated 2.6 million Congolese have been driven from their homes but remain inside the country.
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