At least eight United Nations peacekeepers have been killed and
14 others wounded in a gun battle with suspected Ugandan rebels in the trouble plagued eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
A spokeswoman for the UN mission in the country says the dead and wounded all Guatemalan troops were on a reconnaissance mission in the Garamba National Park near the Ugandan border.
It's believed members of Uganda's notorious Lord's Resistance Army have sought refuge in the area in recent months.
UN spokesman Kemal Saiki said hee had no information the attackers' identities, but said rebels from Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army were known to operate in the region.
The gunfight broke out around dawn and lasted for about four hours until a helicopter-borne Nepalese contingent arrived in support, UN spokeswoman Jennifer Bakody said.
The UN troops involved in the attack were from Guatemala, she said. There was no information on casualties, if any, among the attackers.
About 15,000 UN peacekeepers are helping provide security in Congo and monitor peace deals.
Militia roam Congo
But thousands of militiamen still roam Ituri, where clashes between ethnic Lendu and Hema militia have killed more than 50,000 people since 1999 in a conflict that became a bloody spin-off of Congo's larger 1998-2002 war.
In separate fighting, renegade former army soldiers in Congo ambushed UN peacekeepers with mortars in a hilltop banana plantation, sparking a fighting that left four of the attackers dead, UN officials said.
The peacekeepers were conducting an operation to flush the militants out of territory they captured during a slew of raids this week near Rwindi, said UN military spokesman Mayank Awasthi.
Rwindi is about 150 kilometres north of the regional capital, Goma, near the Rwandan border.
In February, Lendu militiamen in northern Ituri killed nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers as they attempted to disarm their camp.
Following the incident, UN peacekeepers killed at least 75 militiamen in operations to dismantle camps and purge Ituri of years-long terror and violence.
The Ituri conflict was a bloody spin-off of Congo's larger five-year war that involved six African armies and killed nearly four million people, mostly through war-induced starvation and disease.
Congo's shaky transitional government is attempting to shepherd peace throughout the enormous country, but the long arm of the law has been slow to reach the volatile east.
The first presidential elections in decades are expected this year in the vast nation, when Congolese will choose a new government to replace a postwar transitional administration.