Central African Conflicts Intensify, Spur Food Airlift

With only five days of food supplies left and up to 300,000 Hutu refugees on the move, the U.N. food agency announced Friday it would start a 20-day emergency food airlift to eastern Zaire.

The supplies would be sent to Bukavu, across the Ruzizi River from this southwestern Rwandan town.

Fighting between Zairian troops and minority Tutsis has driven the Hutus from camps near Uvira, Zaire, 60 miles south of Bukavu, sending them fleeing into nearby mountains.

In recent weeks, a number of smoldering Central African conflicts have concentrated in eastern Zaire, near its border with Rwanda and Burundi. International officials fear the volatile mixture of troops, rebels, hunger and ethnic conflict could erupt into large-scale bloodshed.

The crisis is an offshoot of the slaughter between Hutus and Tutsis which engulfed Rwanda and Burundi in 1994. Refugees, mostly Hutus, fled to eastern Zaire and have refused to go home.

The turmoil has prompted the Zairian government to try to expel ethnic Tutsis, known as the Banyamulenge, who have lived in eastern Zaire for 200 years..