Tens of thousands of refugees in the Great Lakes region have started returning home, but without adequate support they could reignite conflicts and end up joining the millions of people displaced within their own countries, a senior UN official said on Tuesday.

A military delegation from the African Union (AU) has arrived in North Kivu in the troubled eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to assess the possible deployment of 7,000 troops to disarm foreign armed groups who have been attacking civilians, the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) said.

The lower house of parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the National Assembly, passed on Tuesday a law granting amnesty to people who have been blamed for acts of war as well as political offences.

The man in charge of elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was in Brussels on Monday to assure the Belgium government, which is providing him funding, that the first round of voting would take place as scheduled on 18 December.

Members of parliament from Congolese President Joseph Kabila's party walked out of the National Assembly, the lower chamber of Parliament, on Monday, blocking a vote on amnesty that, if passed, would have benefited those behind the death of Laurent-Desire Kabila, former president and father of the current leader.

Successful elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would not only help the country's peace and transition process but would also greatly contribute to the achievement of stability in Africa's Great Lakes region, according to a UN Security Council delegation that visited the region from 4-11 November.

Some 60,000 people fleeing fighting between the Congolese army and local Mayi-Mayi militiamen resisting demobilisation have now arrived in the village of Dubie in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulgence Muteba said on Tuesday.

The Police Department of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) presented at a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, on Monday three of its officers who are suspected of killing a journalist and his wife in November.

The head of an advanced team of nine EU observers of a constitutional referendum set to take place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on 18 December declared on Monday that he would make an exhaustive and unbiased assessment of preparations for the vote.

Some 1,000 people who had fled their homes to live in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, for six to nine years have returned to their villages in the provinces of Equateur in the northwest of the country and Orientale in the northeast, humanitarian aid workers said on Thursday.