KAMPALA - Some 8,000 Congolese refugees have fled to neighbouring Uganda following clashes between Congo's army and dissident general Laurent Nkunda, the United Nations Refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday.

Democratic Republic of Congo's military has been battling Nkunda since August, when his men abandoned a January peace deal and quit their army brigades.

But fighting has worsened, with gunfire and explosions rocking several parts of eastern Congo's troubled North Kivu province, causing thousands to flee.

"The refugee influx into ... southwest Uganda started Friday night as Congolese living in villages close to the border crossed to Uganda to escape clashes between government soldiers and ... Nkunda ," the UNHCR said in a statement.

Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi, led 4,000 soldiers into the bush in 2004 with the stated aim of protecting Congo's Tutsi minority, who say they are victimised by the government.

He accuses the government of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan rebel group including ex-Hutu militia and soldiers responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide -- a charge Congo denies.

The UNHCR is giving high energy biscuits to the refugees, many of whom it said were sleeping in shop doors in a local town.