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KIGALI, July 8 (AFP) - Civil war between Rwandan troops and rebels has driven 283,000 people from their homes in the northeastern Byumba region, officials said here Wednesday.
Guerrillas of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) shelled a camp for more than 40,000 people at Miyove, spreading panic among the refugees, who already lacked food and decent shelter, officials added.
The first signs of a cholera epidemic have been reported.
Heavy artillery fire was heard overnight Tuesday in the Butaro district of the Ruhengeri region in the northwest, a local source reached by telephone told AFP.
After a cabinet meeting Tuesday, the government called on local authorities to enforce residence permit laws to help to prevent infiltration by the FPR and asked temporary visitors to make themselves known to local officials.
Residence permits were first introduced in the 1960s to crack down on vagabonds.
Cabinet members also decided to relinquish a month's salary each to pay into a fund set up to help support the armed forces.
Fighting has intensified in the north of the densely populated highland nation.
The warring sides are due Friday to hold talks at Arusha in northern Tanzania. The FPR first launched its offensive against Rwanda from neighbouring Uganda on October 1, 1990.
Many of the rebels are exiled Tutsis from Rwanda's minority population, who had served in the Ugandan army.
mgu-jpc/nb/cl AFP AFP SEQN-0270
