The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Wednesday the start of its disarmament and reintegration program of seven armed groups in northeastern Ituri region.

Patricia Tome, spokeswoman of the mission, said the program will help around 15,000 disarmed militants, including 6,000 children, to make a living.

According to Tome, the two main tasks of the program are to help some soldiers return to civilian life and to choose some for the army of the DRC.

Tome stressed that in order to take part in the program, soldiers will be requested to hand over their weapons and uniforms,and then the disarmed will each receive a 50-US-dollar payment andbe temporarily housed in orientation centers for identification purposes.

Tome said the UN peacekeeping force, officially known as MONUC,has helped stabilize the situations in Ituri in the past year.

However, she added, conflicts still happened from time to time over disputes on natural resources.

Tome pointed out that the UN disarmament program is not compulsory but voluntary. But the UN mission does not exclude forcible measures against trouble-makers.

From 1998 to 2003, more than 50,000 people were killed and half a million displaced in intertribal wars in the gold- and diamond-rich region of Ituri.

MONUC currently has around 10,500 troops, with an authorized strength of 10,900. It was established in November 1999 to monitora truce in the DRC, where an ethnic conflict erupted in 1998.

Source: Xinhua