Security has improved in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southeastern province of Katanga, allowing humanitarian groups to mobilise aid, the UN Mission in the country, known as MONUC, said on Monday.

The first 100 of some 58,000 refugees who had been living in the Republic of Congo (ROC) in the past six years are due to begin returning to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s Equateur Province on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the UN refugees agency, UNHCR, announced.

At least 10 brigades of the new Congolese army are being prepared to help with the country's reunification process, especially during elections planned for later this year, the army's chief of general staff, Lt-Gen Kisempia Kisungilanga, told IRIN on Monday.

At least 3,300 Congolese from North Kivu Province, eastern DRC, have fled into Rwanda since the beginning of April to escape insecurity caused by militiamen, a UN official told IRIN on Friday.

Aid workers are unable to reach camps for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where cholera has broken out, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said.

Conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues despite a peace agreement signed by Congolese parties in April 2003.

Congolese army and UN peacekeeping troops carried out a "cordon and search" operation on Monday in the militia strongholds of the embattled northeastern district of Ituri, killing scores of militiamen.

Two more battalions of the Congolese Armed Forces have arrived in Bunia, the main town in the northeastern district of Ituri, ahead of their deployment to formerly militia-occupied territories of Mahagi and Aru, an army liaison officer told IRIN on Tuesday.

The UN Security Council extended an embargo on arms and military financing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday, to include a travel ban on violators and the freezing of their assets.

Two militiamen and a civilian died on Friday after a seven-hour shootout between Congolese national army troops and Union patriotiques de congolais (UPC) militias in a gold-rich territory of the northeastern district of Ituri, displacing thousands of people.