Congo militia free two Nepalese UN peacekeepers

KINSHASA, June 27 (Reuters) Congolese militia fighters today released two of seven Nepalese UN peacekeepers they have been holding hostage in the violent east of the country for more than a month, the United Nations said.

The UN's ongoing hostage crisis highlights the insecurity in Ituri, and elsewhere in eastern Congo, where fighting continues just one month before historic elections are due.

''We can confirm that two Nepalese peacekeepers have been released,'' Kemal Saiki, head spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said today.

Saiki said the two men were in good health and had been reunited with fellow peacekeepers in Kwandroma, a Nepalese base in Congo's lawless northeastern Ituri district.

The seven peacekeepers were captured last month during fighting between UN forces and militia loyal to Peter Karim, a warlord from Ituri's Lendu ethnic group.

Karim has issued a range of demands for their release, including cash and freedom for some of his militia fighters held by the government.

But Saiki said no ransom had been paid. ''We continue our demands that the remaining five peacekeepers are released unconditionally and as soon as possible,'' he added.

The UN sent in negotiators this month to join local community chiefs to try to secure the release of the soldiers, part of the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world.

Members of parliament from Karim's Lendu community have also become involved in the negotiations, a UN source told Reuters.

''They (the MPs) made it clear (to the militia) that it would be the Lendu community that would lose out if this continued,'' the source said.

The UN has some 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo, where they are trying to help a fragile and divided transitional government restore law and order and hold elections.

A 1998-2003 war sucked in six neighbouring countries and has killed some four million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

REUTERS SHB RN1613