Thousands of civilians are fleeing fighting that has been raging since Monday between the UN-backed Congolese army and local militias around the Semliki River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s northeastern district of Ituri, an aid official said.

In the latest joint UN-Congolese army military operation that started on Monday in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) military officers say at least 40 militiamen and three government soldiers have been killed and these figures are likely to rise.

Only five kilometres separate the ports of Brazzaville and Kinshasa but a two-week suspension of river traffic between the two cities made the distance seem infinite. To the relief of Brazzaville's 856,410 residents, authorities reopened the trade route across the River Congo on 4 November.

The Independent Electoral Commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Monday that 150,199 people had been caught registering to vote twice.

The trial concluded for the murder of the Belgian Jesuit missionary René de Haes, assassinated May 7 in Kinshasa.

At the end of a UN Security Council mission to the Great Lakes the head of the delegation said on Thursday that compared to two years earlier, when he was in the region heading a similar tour, the situation has improved markedly.

Some 432 people, among them scores of children, arrested as vagrants by police on Friday in Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo, are still being held under harsh conditions, their parents said.

Reports that Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters have returned to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have not yet been substantiated, according to the military spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) is assisting the country's troops in cordon and search missions in the troubled east, where Ugandan rebels have been sighted and into which Ugandan-based soldiers were reported to have crossed briefly last month.

A UN Security Council mission arrived in Uganda on Wednesday and told reporters that the UN would increase pressure on illegal armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).