The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) military?s efforts to flush militias from the area south of Lake Albert in Ituri district has resulted in serious human rights violations, including the summary execution of six fishermen, rapes, imprisoning children and forcing villagers to transport stolen goods, the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MONUC) said today.

An armed, unidentified group killed eight peacekeepers from Guatemala and injured five others on Monday, during an ambush in Garamba National Park, in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the borders of Sudan and Uganda, according to the United Nations Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

Relief workers say that fighting between the Congolese army and Mayi-Mayi militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province has spread to a new area south of the town of Mitwaba in recent days, with militiamen there becoming increasingly dangerous and destructive.

Hundreds of civilians have been displaced in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the latest round of fighting between dissident soldiers and the army's fifth brigade, a humanitarian official has said.

Flooding caused by recent heavy rains in Kalemie Territory in Congo's Katanga Province could cause severe food shortages, a local employee of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.

Four weeks after the Democratic Republic of Congo held a constitutional referendum, the electoral commission has provisionally declared a victory for the measure.

An overwhelming number of voters have approved a new constitution put to a referendum in December 2005, which is expected to lead to general elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, official results of the poll show.

The retraining of 20 Congolese civilian and military prison personnel began on Wednesday in the southwestern French town of Agen, as part of the Democratic Republic of Congo's effort to shore up its maintenance of the rule of law, the press attaché at French embassy in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, said.

According to a new study, nearly four million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998, making it the deadliest humanitarian crisis in the world. The authors of the report say most of the deaths were from easily preventable and treatable causes stemming from war.

An enormous humanitarian crisis is emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo?s Katanga Province, with tens of thousands of people being displaced, but so far the government and the international community are doing little.