The UN is to send a convoy of food and medical supplies to help the 250,000 people displaced by recent fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thousands of people have been displaced in eastern DR Congo amid fighting between government forces and fighters from the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

The CNDP is led by Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general who says he is fighting to protect the region's ethnic Tutsis.

The latest outbreak of violence is threatening to escalate an already disastrous humanitarian situation.

Inside Story asks why this crisis has erupted now and how much of it is fuelled by ethnic tensions and the battle to control the country's natural resources.