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France on Monday presented a Security Council draft resolution that would increase by some 3,000 the number of UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), diplomatic sources told AFP.
   
The draft calls for "a temporary increase" in the size of the UN mission's "authorized military strength by up to 2,785 military personnel, and the strength of its formed police unit by up to 300 personnel."
   
It would authorize "the deployment of those additional personnel until 31 December 2008, and expresses its intention to extend this authorization" when the mandate of the mission of the United Nations (MONUC) in the DRC comes up for renewal.
   
The UN force, in place since 2001, currently has 17,000 soldiers, including some 5,000 in eastern Congo, where the fighting intensified in recent weeks between the government forces of President Joseph Kabila and renegade general Laurent Nkunda.
   
The text of the draft also "stresses that this temporary increase in personnel" aimed at "enabling MONUC to reinforce its capacity to protect civilians, to restructure its organization, to reconfigure its forces and to optimise their deployment."