Soldiers from the 12th brigade deserted their posts in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the last week, the military spokesman for the UN said on Tuesday, but 580 of them have already returned to base.

The governor of Congo's South Kivu Province, Didas Kaningini, said on Monday that 48 dissident soldiers who were arrested recently as they returned from exile to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had escaped from a jail.

Sixty fighters in the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have left their areas of operation in northern Uganda and southern Sudan and crossed into northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ugandan army spokesman Lt Col Shaban Bantariza said on Monday.

Functionaries and employees of the public sector have begun an "unlimited" strike in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said it arrested 48 dissident soldiers, including 11 officers, on Tuesday in the east of the country near its borders with Rwanda and Burundi as they were returning from exile.

Reports that troops are defecting in large numbers to join a dissident former general fermenting a rebellion in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were refuted by an army spokesman in Kinshasa as well as by a letter purportedly written by the ex-general, Laurent Nkunda.

Around 800 families from Circa Boga and Tchabi, in the north-eastern Ituri region, in the Democtratic Republic of Congo, abandoned their homes due to renewed violence at the end of August, seeking refuge in Eringeti, in Beni, in the North Kivu province.

Local health authorities and UNICEF launched a drive on Monday to vaccinate 10 million children against polio in six provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) bordering Angola, Health Minister Emile Bongeli said.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's government ordered the return of 120 Nigerian police officers serving in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo after some of them were accused of sexual abuses, police officials said on Monday.

The commander of the Democratic Republic of Congo's 8th Military Region, in the eastern province of North Kivu, said on Monday some 350 troops from the 124th battalion had defected to join a dissident army general, Laurent Nkunda.