At least seven protestors were killed and hundreds more arrested in demonstrations on Thursday in various suburbs Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in other urban areas.

President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo told diplomats on Tuesday that he had ordered his army to begin disarming, immediately, thousands of foreign rebels in the east of his country.

Thousands of Congolese civilians may have been displaced by recent fighting between UN peacekeeping troops and local militiamen in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN mission's public information officer, Mohammad Abdoul Wahab, said on Tuesday.

Up to 45,000 AU peacekeepers could be needed to disarm an estimated 15,000 Rwanda Hutus based in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a 19-page report issued on Friday by the African Union.

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.