Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN deputy secretary general in charge of peacekeeping operations, had arrived "to assess the situation and to prepare a report for the (UN) security council," a spokesperson for the UN mission in DRC (MONUC) said by phone.
The UN security council is considering whether to deploy an international intervention force in the region to supplement the 700-man UN mission, which has been helpless to prevent massacres perpetrated by the Lendu majority and Hema minority ethnic groups.
Guehenno later travelled to the Ugandan capital Kampala for talks with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on the situation in northeastern DRC.
From there he was due to travel to South Africa, the Rwandan capital Kigali and Kinshasa.
More than 50 000 people have been killed in Bunia and some half a million displaced since 1999.
Since May 4, between 300 and 350 bodies, mostly civilians, have been discovered in and around Bunia, victims of ethnic fighting for control of the town.
Most of Bunia's 350 000 residents have fled since the bloodletting began.
Outside forces have been blamed for contributing to inter-communal resentments.
Uganda, which pulled out the last of its troops from Ituri earlier this month, has repeatedly been accused of fanning violence in the region and exploiting its natural resources, which include gold and timber.
And others have accused Rwanda of supporting the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), the Hema-led group.
Guehenno held talks with members of the committee for peacemaking in Ituri, which is supposed to act as a temporary administration for the district.
"The message is that there are institutions that exist, that we support them... and that the people of Ituri understand that the only solution is peace and there is no military bsolution," the MONUC spokesperson said.
She said Guehenno had not met leaders of the armed militias.
Another MONUC spokesperson said there had been three or four outbreaks of shooting during Guehenno's meetings but she thought it was a case of "people firing in the air to make an impression".
There were no deaths or injuries.
On Saturday night unidentified looters ransacked Bunia's general hospital.
"To steal a few refrigerators they destroyed 3 000 vaccination doses being kept in them," a UN spokesperson said.
Patients at the hospital, she said, were not molested. It is not known how many people are being treated at the hospital. – Sapa-AFP.
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