British Development Secretary Hilary Benn has urged the Congolese government to pay its soldiers in order to ensure security during the country's electoral process.

Government troops have freed four electoral officials held hostage in eastern village of Burondo, in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN and electoral officials said on Wednesday.

The hunt for Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) intensified on Wednesday when the UN mission there, known as MONUC, deployed a team of observers to the border with Sudan and announced that it would send 150 peacekeepers by the end of the week.

After a five-year exile, some 300 soldiers of the former Zairian army who had fled to the Republic of Congo (ROC) arrived on Tuesday in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

UN and Congolese troops destroyed five rebel camps on Monday during a joint operation in the Virunga National Park, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a military spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), Maj Hans Reichen, said.

A government team from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arrived on Saturday in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, to begin the identification and registration of former Congolese soldiers who served under president Mobutu Sese Seko and now want to return home.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) told the Congolese government to carry out economic reforms rather than print more money to pay civil servants who are threatening to go on strike.

A court in the Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced eight presidential guardsmen to life imprisonment on Tuesday for the murder of an official of the national aviation agency.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has rejected a proposal by Uganda to redeploy its troops to eastern Congo to hunt Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels as well as other Ugandan rebels groups there, Congolese government spokesman and Minister for Information Henri Mova Sakanyi said on Friday.

Public schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have reopened after a delay caused by 230,000 teachers who went on strike from 5 September to demand better pay.