(Recasts with Guterres touring camp in North Kivu)

By Kari Barber

GOMA, Congo, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees called on Friday for a political solution to end fighting in eastern Congo, where he toured a camp for displaced civilians and heard stories of killings and rape.

Antonio Guterres visited Buhimba camp outside Goma, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province where battles between the army and rebels have forced tens of thousands from their homes.

Guterres inspected the shelters at Buhimba made of sticks and covered with plastic. The camp houses about 20,000 of the total estimated 800,000 displaced by insecurity in North Kivu.

Half of these fled their homes over the last year in Congo's worst refugee crisis since the end of a 1998-2003 war.

"The stories I've listened to -- people being killed, houses being burned, women being raped -- are stories of tragedy, of a horror that cannot be repeated," Guterres told thousands of refugees who gathered to hear him at Buhimba.

U.N. officials estimate that about 60,000 civilians have fled fighting in North Kivu over the past week alone as rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda turned the tide of an army offensive and retook positions they lost the week before.

Guterres, who was due to meet humanitarian workers and visit other displaced civilians in North Kivu over the weekend, called for a peace pact to end the fighting and stop more refugees swelling the existing camps around Goma.

"There is never a humanitarian solution for a humanitarian crisis. Solutions are always political, but to have a political solution you need the political will," he said.

Guterres added that while international relief organisations were doing their best to help the people of North Kivu, "let's be honest, we are not doing enough".

"LIKE COWS"

Humanitarian workers fear the expected arrival of tens of thousands of fresh refugees from outlying areas around Goma will strain camps already bursting with families, many of whom are having to sleep rough.

"We don't have any plastic sheeting, so we sleep on the ground like cows," said 25-year-old Rehema Nzabona, who fled with her four children earlier this week after Nkunda's rebels drove the army from the town of Mushake outside Goma.

"You've got tens of thousands of people in camps and makeshift camps outside Goma and a lot of them are sick," Aya Shneerson, director for the U.N. World Food Programme in North Kivu, told Reuters.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week urged the Congolese government to protect civilians caught up in the army offensive, which has met stiff resistance from Nkunda's rebels despite having logistical support from U.N. peacekeepers.

Nkunda, who says he is fighting to defend the interests of the Tutsi ethnic minority in Congo, has refused demands to disarm from President Joseph Kabila, who has vowed to pacify the conflict-torn east after winning elections last year.

Health experts said the massive displacement and concentration of people had also created higher rates of epidemics such as cholera, meningitis and measles. (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Kinshasa, Writing by Pascal Fletcher)

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