MONUC, the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is to get another 3,000 soldiers by the end of October. They will be deployed in the volatile east and north-east of the country.
The United Nations mission in DR Congo has revealed that at least 60 people were killed last weekend in a "massacre" in the east of the country blamed on Rwandan Hutu rebels.
Toward the end of a three-month multinational offensive against them, Ugandan LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) rebels in northern Congo hacked 12 people to death and kidnapped around 40 others, according to rights activists.
The UN Security Council has unanimously renewed the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo for a year. The mission, known as MONUC, is due to receive an additional 3,000 peacekeepers.
UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon told Belgium's Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht that he supported the idea of an interim EU peacekeeping mission until the extra 3,000 troops agreed to for the UN's MONUC force are dispatched.
