By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Gunmen in eastern Congo have shot dead a Congolese national working for an Italian aid group, U.N. peacekeepers and relief agencies said on Tuesday.

The man and a driver were ambushed while travelling on Monday from Goma, the capital of violence-ravaged North Kivu province, towards Rutshuru, a strategic town captured by Tutsi rebels during a recent offensive against government forces.

"When they arrived at Burayi (around 5 km south of Rutshuru) their car came under fire by unidentified elements," Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, told Reuters.

"The passenger was killed on the spot, and the driver was seriously wounded. They were without escort, because the road was considered more or less safe," he said.

A spokesman for the U.N.'s humanitarian coordination agency, OCHA, said the two men were fired upon 'at point blank range'.

The victims worked for the Voluntary Association for International Service (AVSI), an Italian non-governmental organisation operating in eastern Congo.

More than 250,000 civilians have fled fighting between Tutsi insurgents, government soldiers, local militia and Rwandan rebels since clashes broke out in August.

David Nthengwe of U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said they had been working with children in refugee camps.

"They were allocated space in our new camp where they were creating child-friendly spaces, ensuring that children who were in the camp continued to have the right to play," he said.

"Rutshuru is very insecure and everything can happen. It would be useful for us to have armed escorts when we go to insecure places," he said.

The incident took place well within territory controlled by the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP, led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.

CNDP officials blamed the incident on their enemies, the Rwandan Hutu rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

"The CNDP succeeded in capturing one person who was lying in ambush at the location in connivance with the killers," the movement said in a statement, adding that the suspect would be interrogated in the presence of U.N. officials.

The U.N. has recorded over 100 cases of violence against humanitarian workers in North Kivu so far this year. (Additional reporting and editing by Alistair Thomson) (Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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