International envoys converged on eastern Congo on Friday to help end some of the worst violence the Central African nation has seen in years.
Thousands of anxious, hungry refugees struggled to get home amid a fragile ceasefire.
A crush of people were back on Congo's dirt roads
after fleeing the
battle between the army and Laurent Nkunda's rebel movement.
"We've had nothing to eat for three days," said Rhema Harerimana, travelling with one baby nursing at her breast, another on her back and a toddler clinging to her skirt.
Harerimana said she had been on the run for five days but was now heading home to Kibumba, about 28km from the eastern provincial capital of Goma where rebels halted their advance on Wednesday and called for a ceasefire.
The conflict is fuelled by festering ethnic hatred left over from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's unrelenting civil wars.
Nkunda claims the Congolese Government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia, who escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis.
All sides are believed to fund their fighters by mining Congo's vast mineral riches so have no financial interest in ending the fighting.
Ordinary people are bearing the brunt of the dispute.
According to the United Nations, some 50,000 Congolese appear to have fled refugee camps near Rutshuru, a village 88km north of Goma, in recent days.
The UN's deputy representative and humanitarian co-ordinator in Congo said more than a million people have been now displaced _ 220,000 of them since August.
"This is extraordinary," Ross Mountain said. "A million [displaced] in a province of six million."
The UN has only 6000 of its 17,000 Congo peacekeepers in the east because of unrest elsewhere.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo is the largest in the world _ but it called for reinforcements last week.
The European Union decided Friday against sending troops into Congo, saying the 27-member bloc will instead focus on a diplomatic solution.
