Congo´s Army Has Killed 29 Militia In Northeast

There was no immediate independent confirmation from Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission of the death toll given by the army.

Congo's army has killed 29 militia fighters in operations since late May against a local militia group and its Rwandan Hutu rebel allies in the country's northeast, a senior army officer said on Sunday.

Four government soldiers were also killed in the clashes and a number of others were wounded, General Jean-Claude Kifwa, the army commander in Orientale province of Democratic Republic of Congo, told U.N.-sponsored Radio Okapi.

The army had launched the operations to force militia fighters known as Mai-Mai in gold-rich Bafwasende territory, around 260 km (160 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Kisangani, to disband or join the army.

"The situation is tense. We are asking them to lay down their arms ... Otherwise, we will be forced to act," Kifwa told Radio Okapi.

There was no immediate independent confirmation from Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission of the death toll given by the army.

The United Nations has its largest peacekeeping mission in the world, 17,000-strong, in Democratic Republic of Congo.

But Congo's eastern borderlands remain a volatile patchwork of militia-controlled zones and rebel fiefdoms where violence has persisted despite the official end of a 1998-2003 war and government efforts to impose state authority.

The army accuses the Bafwasende Mai-Mai of links with the Hutu rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which includes ex-Rwandan military and militia blamed for Rwanda's 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

In November, Congo promised eastern neighbour Rwanda it would disarm members of the FDLR on its soil, by force if necessary, as part of efforts to defuse cross-border tensions.

Clashes involving Rwandan Hutu insurgents have grown more frequent in recent months as the army has stepped up operations near their strongholds.

Aid agencies fear a full-scale army offensive against the FDLR could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation in the east, where more than half a million people have fled fighting over the last 18 months.

At least four Congolese civilians were killed earlier this month when FDLR fighters attacked a refugee camp in eastern North Kivu province, U.N. officials said.

Some 5.4 million people are estimated to have died since 1998 in Congo's conflict and ensuing humanitarian crisis, most from hunger and disease, as foreign armies and Congolese rebels fought for control of the country's abundant natural resources.