Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province opened fire to calm a violent protest by refugees over food distributions on Monday, killing a child and wounding 11 civilians, a local official said.

The United Nations mission in Congo said it was trying to confirm reports that four civilians, including a child, had been killed by stray bullets in the violence in the town of Kiwanja, 60 km North of the provincial capital, Goma.

Several hundred villagers driven from their homes by fighting between government soldiers and rebels attacked UN peacekeepers in a dawn protest at what they said were unkept promises of humanitarian aid. They surrounded a local military base for Congo's UN mission (MONUC), hurling stones and injuring 27 peacekeepers, before police intervened and fired into the crowd.

"There are 11 wounded and one dead, a 6-year-old child," Dominique Bofondo, the administrator of Rutshuru territory where Kiwanja is located, told Reuters.

"They had been here for three weeks now without any (humanitarian) assistance. They were demanding food," he said.

The UN peacekeeping mission, which is mandated to use deadly force to protect civilians, said its soldiers had not used their weapons. It said four Congolese police officers were injured as well as its peacekeepers.

"MONUC, which reminds the Congolese people that it is in North Kivu to help the government restore peace..., is deeply shocked by this show of extreme violence towards its personnel," the world body said in a statement.

"It deeply regrets that due to the machinations of certain local actors, its personnel are often unjustly used as a scapegoat and subjected to unjustifiable acts of violence."

Fighting between the army, Tutsi-dominated insurgents, Rwandan Hutu rebels, and local militia has caused more than 370 000 Congolese to flee since the beginning of the year. Fighters loyal to renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda abandoned a January peace deal in late August, withdrawing from special mixed army brigades and sparking open conflict with government forces.

Aid agencies are struggling to cope with a growing humanitarian crisis, which has seen camps for refugees from the violence balloon in size since August. Thousands of villagers fled to Kiwanja and nearby Rutshuru town last month, when clashes between Nkunda loyalists, the army, and local Mai Mai militia erupted around Bunagana, a town on Congo's border with Uganda.