United Nations Radio

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has cleared a misunderstanding with Congolese soldiers in the eastern part of the country.

According to MONUC, an incident occured at a check point on Sunday when soldiers stopped its convoy carrying ten Mai Mai militiamen together with ten police officers and three civilians to Goma.

MONUC says the soldiers wanted to check the identity of the passengers because they thought the ten militiamen were rebel fighters loyal to Laurent Nkunda.

MONUC spokesman Madnoje Mounoubai says that when the convoy was stopped, civilians present at the scene got agitated and threw stones at the United Nations cars but the Congolese soldiers intervened.

"They took all the 23 passengers to Goma along with MONUC convoy. Once in Goma the policemen were released. The civilians were released. They kept the Mai Mai till this morning when official papers were processed and they were handed officially by MONUC to the FARDC."

The FARDC is the Congolese army.

The ten Mai Mai militiamen, who are in fact allies of the government, were being demobilized.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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