Nairobi - Burgeoning conflicts in Somalia and Darfur loomed large here on Thursday at a summit of leaders from African Great Lakes nations convened to discuss and cement recent progress in the volatile region.
Although neither crisis appears on the agenda for the two-day meeting in the Kenyan capital, both were clearly on participants' minds as they plotted regional security and development courses.
Gains in the powderkeg Great Lakes region could be damaged if all-out war erupts between Somalia's powerful Islamists and weak government and their allies and by fighting raging in Sudan's western Darfur region, officials said.
"We are very much concerned about Somalia," newly inaugurated Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila told reporters as he arrived. "It's not on the agenda, but it may crop up in the meeting."
A short time later, Somalia did arise as African Union commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare berated the continent for failing to adequately support the country's two-year-old transitional government.
Konare stopped short of explicitly urging African nations to provide troops to a UN-authorised, AU-endorsed peacekeeping mission the Islamists have vowed to fight, but did call on the continent to help the government.
"Somalia is a non-state," he told the six heads of state and government attending. "We have observed the lack of existence of a state and allowed things to rot."
"For two years there has been no real support given to the transitional government," Konare said to the audience that included Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
"We face a difficult situation again today," he said. "We need to work for a balanced dialogue. If we cannot deal with this now through dialogue, we will face ethnic republics and religious republics, which will be unfortunate not only for the whole region but the whole continent."
The comments came as both the Islamists and the Somali government step up preparations for an apparent full-scale conflict that many fear could engulf the Horn of Africa, drawing in arch-foes Ethiopia and Eritrea.
European Union development commissioner Louis Michel, attending the Great Lakes conference as an observer, echoed Konare's comments, calling for a resumption in peace talks that collapsed last month.
"As far as Somalia is concerned, together we should assure that we exhaust all the ways and means to foster political dialogue before we resort to a military solution in this region," he told reporters.
On Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced by nearly four years of fighting between African rebels and pro-Khartoum militia, Konare appealed for urgent action.
"In Darfur, nobody has a right to deny the atrocities," he said in implicit criticism of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir who recently said fewer than 9,000 people had died and downplayed dire conditions there.
"Nobody has a right to dispute the humanitarian crisis taking place in that region," Konare said, urging African nations to boost contributions to the embattled AU peace mission in Darfur.
"We need more African troops providing technical and logistical support overseen by UN management with a new commitment for political engagement," he said.
Khartoum has refused to allow the United Nations to take over the cash-strapped and ill-equipped AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and has given conflicting signals about whether it will accept a "hybrid" UN-AU operation.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, whose country is a member of the UN Security Council, said Darfur remained a critical issue for Africa.
"We need to remain seized with the issue," he told the summit. "Let us maintain pressure on the parties to behave and act accordingly."
Other than Kabila, Kikwete, Gedi and Konare other senior African officials attending include Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the host, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, Burundian President Pierre Nkuruziza and Rwandan Prime Minister Bernard Makuza.