Kinshasa

Fifteen people — six rebel Rwandan Hutu militiamen, a government soldier and eight civilians — have been killed in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), military sources said on Tuesday. The attacks in the restive Nord-Kivu province were led by Rwandan Hutu rebels accompanied by local Mai Mai militiamen.

Landmines laid in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s five-year civil war have killed almost 1 800 people since the end of the conflict, the United Nations anti-landmine centre in DRC said on Tuesday. The centre’s director, Harouna Ouedraogo, said that landmines kill people every month in the vast African country.

The human rights organisation Amnesty International said on Friday a dissident general is recruiting large numbers of children to fight in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) conflicted North Kivu province, affecting programmes to reunify children formerly associated with armed groups with their families.

Fighting has broken out between the army and local militia in Ituri in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a military spokesperson said on Friday. ”Two stations held by our soldiers were attacked yesterday [Thursday] evening by a group of militia in Nyamavi and in Boguma,” said captain Charles Boeka, a spokesperson for the Central African country’s armed forces in Ituri.

A senior United Nations official on Wednesday called on politicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) not to disappoint the Congolese people during presidential and general elections on June 18. ”The Congolese people have very high expectations for democratic elections,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, deputy UN secretary general.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) media watchdog has banned politics from the airwaves of state television for 48 hours after party leaders traded insults on screen. The High Media Authority acted after Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi, a leader of President Joseph Kabila’s party, gave vent live against rivals.

Unidentified assailants ambushed United Nations peacekeepers from Guatemala in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday, sparking an hours-long gunbattle that left eight UN troops dead, officials said. Fourteen UN peacekeepers were wounded in the attack in Garamba National Park.

An offensive by troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against militia armies in the volatile east has driven 122 000 people from their homes, the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monuc) said on Wednesday. ”A new wave of 46 000 people has been displaced since November 2005,” Monuc said.

Operations by govermment troops, backed by United Nations forces, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed 86 Ugandan rebel fighters, the UN said on Wednesday. Six members of the goverment forces, the FARDC, and one Indian UN peacekeeper had also died, a spokesperson for the UN told reporters in Kinshasa.

The European Union on Wednesday called on the transitional government in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to forge ahead with elections after voters gave overwhelming backing to constitutional reform in a referendum, according to partial results. The referendum is but a ”starting point”, the EU said.

Voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were still going to polling stations on Monday for the second day of a poll where most politicians hope they will approve a new, post-war Constitution. The referendum is a key step in restoring peace and democracy to the DRC.

It certainly won’t be pretty. But nothing about the chaotic political life of the Democratic Republic of Congo ever has been. Nevertheless, the 25-million voters of this Central African giant are expected to deliver a resounding ”yes” in Sunday’s constitutional referendum.

Congolese began voting on Sunday in a constitutional poll that if endorsed will usher in the first democratic elections in the vast country since independence from Belgium 45 years ago. About 25-million eligible voters can tick an orange box to vote for the Constitution or a grey box to say ”no” in an exercise that includes about 40 000 polling stations in the central African country.

At least 25 000 people have fled fighting between the army and Mai Mai militiamen in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo region of Katanga since mid-November, humanitarian sources said late on Wednesday. Those displaced are fleeing an army offensive against loyalists to the Mai Mai militia chief ”Gedeon”, in order to re-establish order ahead of a planned constitutional referendum on December 18.

Dozens of passengers have been killed in a rail accident in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when the train they were riding crossed a bridge that knocked them off the top, a senior official said on Tuesday. ”There are dozens of dead, perhaps around 50,” said Koloso Sumaili, Governor of Maniema province.

Rebels from the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have again entered the Democratic Republic of Congo from Sudan, a senior DRC officer said on Thursday. ”We have not seen them ourselves but since November 12 rangers in the [Garamba] park have reported the presence of 20 to 50 elements of the LRA in the northeast of the park,” regional commander General Constant Ndima said.

Fifty-seven rebels have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeastern Ituri region during a three-day offensive by government troops backed by United Nations peacekeepers. ”Fighting was very fierce. Losses were heavy. One of our men was killed and seven wounded. As for the enemy, we counted 57 dead and several wounded,” said the army spokesperson in Ituri, Captain Olivier Mputu.

A United Nations Security Council mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday called for faster moves towards post-war elections, saying all parties it had met said this was their own aim. ”Everybody we’ve met has expressed a desire to go the polls,” France’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said.

A political editor and his wife were shot and killed overnight on Thursday in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in what appeared to be a political assassination amid a wave of intimidation of journalists. The couple were shot down at point-blank range by armed masked men in their home in Limete district.

Human remains were discovered this week in two mass graves near Rutshuru in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, where three similar graves were uncovered in September, a Congolese army officer said on Thursday. ”We found two new graves in the Rutshuru area, using information from local people,” said the commander of the Fifth Brigade, Colonel Jean-Marie Shekasikila.

Rwandan Hutu rebels killed 25 Congolese villagers with machetes, a United Nations Mission in Congo official said in Kinshasa on Tuesday. It was unclear whether the FDLR (Forces for Liberation and Defence of Rwanda) rebels or a splinter group that calls itself the Rasta militia, carried out the attack.

Eleven people were killed on Monday when an Antonov-26 freight aircraft struck a tree near Isiro airport in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), aviation officials said. The death toll was higher than a provisional figure of seven given by local officials and the United Nations-funded Okapi radio.

The death toll in an epidemic of ”bloody diarrhoea” in the central region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 23, a health official said on Thursday. The epidemic broke out on July 29 at Kabongola, about 240km from Kindu, the main city of the central Maniema province.

Government troops in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo killed 21 out of a group of militia fighters who attacked them at the weekend, an officer of the DRC army said on Monday. Colonel Janvier Mayanga wa Kishuba said the deaths took place on Saturday during clashes with so-called Mai-Mai guerillas who are allied to ethnic Hutu rebels from nearby Rwanda.