Train, boats rush food to hungry,isolated Congolese

KINSHASA, Oct 14 (Reuters) A train has set out to deliver hundreds of tonnes of food aid to hungry people affected by war in southern Congo and help isolated villages survive until the next harvest, the UN World Food Programme said.

Fighting during and especially since Congo's devastating 1998-2003 war forced an estimated 200,000 people from their homes in mineral-rich Katanga province alone.

Despite ongoing violence in parts of Katanga, many of those displaced have returned home during a peace process that will culminate in a presidential run-off vote on October. 29, but they have little to eat until they can grow crops for themselves.

''Those people who were able to plant will only start harvesting in January,'' Charles Vincent, WFP's country coordinator in Congo, said in the statement yesterday.

The train -- at 15 wagons long the biggest used for delivering aid in Democratic Republic of Congo for years -- set out yesterday from the southern city of Lubumbashi, WFP said.

It will make the 400 km journey northeast to the port of Bukuma on the Lualaba river, carry 587 tonnes of food aid destined for those who have recently returned home and those still displaced.

At Bukuma, consignments of food will be loaded onto barges and trucks for transport to isolated villages that can only be reached by rough trails or by river boat.

Thousands of tonnes of food will be moved to the area by train over the coming months, slashing the cost of transporting food aid to the remote area, Vincent said.

''In March, we had to resort to airdropping food in Katanga to stock vital supplies in various places. The transport cost was 1,200 dollars per tonne, but it would have been much lower, about 340 dollars, if we had been able to combine railways, road and water transport,'' Vincent said.

More than 25 million Congolese are registered to vote in the country's first free, open polls for more than 40 years, which conclude with an October. 29 presidential run-off between incumbent Joseph Kabila and former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Fighting between the two candidates' forces on the streets of the capital Kinshasa in August has raised fears over security in the city as the run-off approaches, while armed militias continue to rape and pillage in lawless eastern Congo.

REUTERS SRS PM0442