Experts on peace and security from Great Lakes countries and international organisations began meeting in Nairobi on Monday to prepare documents that will constitute the Pact of Security, Stability and Development that heads of state of the region are to sign in November.

The EU special representative to Africa's Great Lakes region, Aldo Ajello, said on Friday the Union might support military action against Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo if they refuse to disarm and return home.

Although 15,000 former militiamen in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern district of Ituri have been disarmed, the UN mission in the country, known as MONUC, says it is concerned over the regrouping and rearming of the fighters, despite intense UN military operations.

Under the scorching afternoon sun in Rutshuru Territory in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an excited crowd of several hundred people, armed with machetes and knives, mills around the carcasses of two elephants stretched out on the ground.

Despite prevailing insecurity in the east and northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the postponement of presidential elections, the Independent Electoral Commission launched its registration campaign of 3.5 million voters in Kinshasa on Monday.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has repatriated the first group of 42 Congolese in Angola, some of whom had been there since 1996, the agency's head of external relations in Kinshasa, Jens Hensmann, said on Monday.

An Indian UN peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday after being hit by stray bullets in an exchange of fire between government troops and unidentified gunmen, a military spokesman of the UN mission in the country said.

At least 1,700 people have fled villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga Province following attacks by Mayi-Mayi militiamen, a UN official told IRIN on Tuesday.

Three Congolese soldiers were killed, four were wounded and hundreds of civilians were displaced in the latest fighting on Sunday between government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu militiamen in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu.

Voter registering is due to start in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on 20 June, a spokesman for the country's independent electoral commission announced on Monday.