In line with new efforts by the UN mission and the government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to dismantle militias in the troubled northeastern district of Ituri, local authorities announced on Monday the arrest of Kahwa Panga Mandro.

The disarmament effort of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUC, has brought almost 3,000 minors into the care of child-protection agencies working in the northeastern district of Ituri.

As UN peacekeeping troops increase the pressure to disarm the militias of Ituri, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), their reintegration into society is beset by many problems.

Nine women were killed and 5,300 civilians displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southwestern province of Katanga following fighting between government troops and Mayi-Mayi militias, a UN official told IRIN on Wednesday.

Provincial authorities in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), said on Tuesday that there had been fighting between Congolese troops and Rwandan Hutu militias, known as Interahamwe, at a village 150 km north of the provincial capital, Goma.

Once renowned for its food production, Djugu, a territory in Ituri, is rapidly degenerating into a food-deficit zone, according to local agriculture experts and UN agencies.

Cholera has broken out in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), killing six people and infecting 60 others, an official from the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday.

Militiamen in Congo's Ituri District who failed to comply with a UN ultimatum to disarm will be hunted down, Gen Jean-Francois Collot d'Escury, chief of staff of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), has said.

Leaders of a Rwandan armed group operating from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Thursday their intention to end attacks against their homeland, according to the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.

Three months after the resumption of fighting between Lendu and Hema militias in Ituri, a district in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a vivid picture of human-rights violations is emerging.