"With available resources in DRC we have over 700 men – 250 Tunisian and 470 Ghanaian soldiers," said Amos Namanga Ngongi, special envoy for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
"We can secure the capital without waiting for the arrival of new troops, which could mean delaying the set-up of the transition (government's) institutions," he told journalists.
Ngongi, who heads the UN mission, known as Monuc, has participated in peace talks aimed at setting up a unity government, which includes all parties who fought a bloody four-year civil war in the vast central African nation.
All parties to the conflict - the Kinshasa government, rebels, civil society groups and the political opposition - signed a peace pact in December last year, pledging to set up a government that would last up until elections, the first in more than 40 years.
The peace pact was formalised in April, but fighting has raged in various areas of DRC since then, notably the northeastern Ituri region.
Ngongi said the main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), had requested a 3 000-strong force to secure Kinshasa, but said the number of soldiers needed was likely closer to 700 to 1 000.
"Monuc will secure the environment, the movements and residences, as well as security teams (of transition government members).
We are operational and are already escorting leaders of the RCD," he said.
The RCD, the Rwanda-backed group whose rebellion in the DRC's east launched the larger war, uses the UN force protection in Kinshasa, but other parties to the peace accords use no, or much smaller, security services. - Sapa-AFP.
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