Unidentified gunmen shot and wounded several UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo in an ambush on Friday in the village of Kafe, in the northeastern district of Ituri.

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, appealed on Friday for US $217,000 to fight cholera the Democratic Republic of Congo's South Kivu Province, where at least 34 people have died of the disease since December 2004.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that it would have to cut rations for 50,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees in Rwanda unless donors provided US $2.6 million.

Another disarmament transit centre has opened in Bunia, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where at least 3,300 ex-combatants have been disarmed, demobilised and prepared for reintegration into the national army, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has sent two teams to an area in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where an outbreak of pneumonic plague had been reported.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) plans to deploy a police brigade in the northeastern district of Ituri to protect civilians from militias, Interior Minister Théophile Mbemba told IRIN on Monday.

Some 43 people have died and 13 others infected following an outbreak of pneumonic plague in the mining area of Zobia, in the region of Bas-Uele in Oriental Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an official in the Ministry of Health told IRIN on Monday.

Eleven foreign ministers of countries in Africa's Great Lakes region met on Thursday in Kigali, Rwanda, to map out strategies of implementing a regional pact on security, stability and development signed in November 2004 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

A month-long strike by doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in government hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has resulted in 1,360 deaths in the capital, Kinshasa, an official of local human rights NGO said on Wednesday.

The International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) has urged the Congolese government to vet and prosecute former militia leaders instead of appointing them to high-ranking positions in the newly integrated national army.