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The United Nations and the European Union are attempting to ensure that a shaky truce in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo holds.
The foreign ministers of Britain and France flew into DR Congo on Saturday for talks with Joseph Kabila, the president, after tens of thousands of people were displaced by fighting between government forces and rebel fighters.
David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner were expected to meet Kabila in the capital Kinshasa before travelling to the eastern city of Goma.
The provincial capital of Nord-Kivu province has been threatened by an offensive by the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general who says he is fighting to protect the region's ethnic Tutsis.
"This is a massacre such as Africa has probably never seen, which is taking place virtually before our eyes," Kouchner told French Europe 1 radio before he left for DR Congo.
Government forces abandoned Goma on Wednesday as the rebels advanced, leaving about 850 UN peacekeepers between Nkunda's forces and the city.
Rwanda accusations
Miliband and Kouchner, along with Jendayi Frazer, Washington's senior diplomat for Africa, were later due to travel to Rwanda, which the government in Kinshasa has accused of backing Nkunda's fighters.
On Friday, Kabila and Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, agreed to attend an emergency summit on the crisis to discuss the crisis, Louis Michel, the EU development commissioner, said.
He said both leaders were clearly sincere about "opting for dialogue and putting an end to the reasons that are undermining the east".
Kigali has repeatedly denied any involvement in the fighting.
"The government of Rwanda is not in this conflict," Louise Muchikiwabo, Rwanda's minister of information, told Al Jazeera.
However, the head of Uruguay's military, which provides 1,300 of the UN peacekeepers operating in DR Congo, said that the CNDP was "backed by tanks, something that general Nkunda had not had until now".
General Jorge Rosales said it was "not easy to identify rebel forces," but suggested that there is a "high probability that troops from Rwanda are operating in the area".
Ceasefire declaration
Nkunda has declared a unilateral ceasefire and called direct talks with the government, a demand that Kinshasa has so far ignored.
"If the government can accept the call, we are ready to talk. We support the position of the international community [to stop fighting]. That's why we are in a ceasefire," Nkunda told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, on Friday urged the leaders in the region to take necessary measures to ensure fighting does not resume.
"I urge General Nkunda of the CNDP to disengage and keep this ceasefire declaration he has made and engage in dialogue," said Ban.
Marie-Roger Biloa, editor of Africa International, a monthly news magazine, told Al Jazeera that the central government in the DRC is very weak.
"Despite the international community expressing its support, the rebels clearly have the upper hand here, and it is ultimately dialogue that is needed, not further violence."
Looting and killing
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the humanitarian situation in Goma is "catastrophic," with two hospitals having been ransacked by looters on Thursday.
Nkunda's forces have been accused of looting and burning refugee camps in the region, while the UN human rights commissioner said government troops has carried out rapes, killings and lootings around Goma.
Navi Pillay, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, urged the government to take "swift and significant action" to control their troops and protect civilians.
"What happened in Goma should not have happened, as most violations were committed by looting soldiers belonging to the government forces," she said.
About 220,000 people have now been displaced since fighting broke out in August, bringing to more than one million the number forced from their homes in Nord-Kivu in the last two years.
PHOTO CAPTION
Goma residents walk past a poster of Congolese president Joseph Kabila.
Al-Jazeera
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