(LONDON) - A group of former world leaders on Thursday called on the European Union to send a temporary force urgently to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to help protect civilians there.

In an open letter, the group, including Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African president F. W. de Klerk, urged EU leaders to use their "personal political leadership" to help ease the crisis.

"The situation in the eastern DRC is a clear humanitarian catastrophe," they wrote, noting that "the peacekeeping force on the ground is currently unable to protect the hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk."

"To those of us who have worked on such issues for some time, current events bring back painful memories of Rwanda and Srebrenica," they said, referring to notorious genocides from the 1990s.

The United Nations special envoy to the violence-scarred African country has called for an interim force to deploy immediately to support UN peacekeepers until reinforcements arrive, they said.

"It is increasingly clear that the EU is best placed, through its standing battle groups -- to play this role and deploy now.

"We urge you to speedily agree to the temporary deployment of an EU force. In our view this would help protect the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians currently at risk.

"It needs your personal political leadership to make sure this happens and ensure 'never again' really means never again," the added.

Fears are mounting over the fate of more than 250,000 people who have been displaced since fighting erupted between rebels led by Laurent Nkunda and the military in Nord-Kivu province in late August.

While the UN plans to send 3,000 more peacekeepers to DR Congo, the government has told UN chief Ban Ki-moon that it refuses to accept an offer by India to provide 1,500 more soldiers.

Signatories of the letter also include former UN human rights chief Mary Robinson, ex-Czech president Vaclav Havel and Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the UN tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

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