(Updates with lower death toll)

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, June 4 (Reuters) - Rwandan Hutu rebels killed six Congolese civilians on Wednesday in a refugee camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations officials said, revising an earlier death toll of 12.

The killings followed fighting between rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Congolese government troops trying to drive them out of strongholds near the border with Rwanda.

"They fired indiscriminately inside the camp ... they targeted the most vulnerable members of society," U.N. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said.

He initially told Reuters 12 refugees were killed but later retracted the figure, saying the number of dead was lower.

Francesca Fontanini, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in Congo, said six refugees were confirmed killed. Medical workers said more than 20 people were wounded.

U.N. officials said that, during their retreat, the rebels entered a refugee camp at Kinyandoni, about 75 km (45 miles) north of Goma, capital of North Kivu province. They started stealing and looting and opened fire, they said.

The camp housed about 6,000 people who had fled fighting in North Kivu in the past 18 months involving the FDLR, government soldiers, Tutsi insurgents and local militiamen.

The attack at Kinyandoni was one of the worst carried out against civilians in eastern Congo since the government signed a peace accord in January with more than a dozen rebel groups and militias, but not the FDLR.

UNHCR's Fontanini said two aid workers were among the wounded.

"They entered the camp and went into the offices of the camp manager. They took money. They looted. Then they came out and started shooting," she told Reuters.

Twenty-two badly wounded refugees were taken to the nearby town of Rutshuru where staff from French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres set up emergency operating theatres.

500,000 HAVE FLED

Aid workers estimate half a million people have fled violence in the past year-and-a-half in Congo's eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where fighting has persisted five years after the official end of the 1998-2003 conflict.

About 5.4 million people are estimated to have been killed in the Congolese conflict and ensuing humanitarian crisis, most from hunger and disease. The U.N. maintains a 17,000-strong peacekeeping force in Congo.

The east of the former Belgian colony remains a volatile patchwork of rebel fiefdoms and militia-controlled zones.

The presence there of the FDLR, which includes ex-Rwandan military and militia blamed for Rwanda's 1994 genocide killing of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, has kept the area unstable and harmed Congo's relations with Rwanda.

In November, Congo promised Rwanda it would disarm members of the FDLR on its soil, by force if necessary, as part of efforts to defuse cross-border tensions.

However, clashes involving Rwandan Hutu insurgents have grown more frequent in recent months as the government army has stepped up operations near their strongholds.

Aid agencies fear a full-scale army offensive against the FDLR could worsen the humanitarian situation. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com) (Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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