UN Security Council says Congo still needs help

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (Reuters) The Democratic Republic of Congo still needs international support, the UN Security Council said today as it prepared to extend a mandate on the world's largest peacekeeping mission for two months.

A 17,000-strong UN mission helped restore order after a 1998-2003 war which killed an estimated four million Congolese, mainly through disease and hunger. The force kept peace last year during the first democratic polls in more than four decades.

In a statement, the council ''underlined the need for the international community to continue to provide support to the Democratic Republic of Congo toward the attainment of durable post conflict reconstruction and sustainable development.'' A draft resolution by France recommended that the mandate for the UN mission in the former Belgian colony at the heart Africa, which is due to expire on February 15, be extended until April 15. The council is due to vote on February 15.

''Within that period the secretary-general should provide a report to the council about his consultations on the future mandate of MONUC (UN Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo),'' Slovak Ambassador Peter Burian, the council president for February, told reporters.

''Hopefully by mid-March we will have a clear idea of how the mandate should look,'' Burian said. ''But in the discussions ... the members agreed MONUC should continue its presence and MONUC should deal with the important challenges of the post-transition period.'' Despite a 2003 peace accord officially ending the war --the most deadly since World War Two -- grave human rights violations remain widespread, particularly in a volatile east, where Congo's army regularly clashes with armed militias.

Humanitarian workers have estimated that more than 1,200 people die a day in Congo from violence, hunger and disease, in what some call the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Security Council welcomed the formation on Monday of a new government and encouraged it to urgently tackle challenges such as security issues and national reconciliation.

Congo is as big as Western Europe and control of its huge reserves of copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds and many other minerals was a key factor in the war.

REUTERS SRS BST0048